Nikolai Samokysh

Nikolay Semyonovich Samokish (; ; 25 October 1860, Nezhin, Government of Chernigov, Russian Empire – 18 January 1944, Simferopol, Russian SFSR, USSR) was a Ukrainian and Soviet painter and illustrator of Ukrainian Cossack descent who specialized in military art and animal painting. During the First World War Samokish was a correspondent for , one of the most popular patriotic journals in Imperial Russia. He was a recipient of the Stalin Prize in 1941.

Samokish is also known as the second husband of the book illustrator Elena Sudkovskaya, with whom he often collaborated.

Biography His father was a postman; probably of Hungarian ancestry. He spent his youth in Nosivka with the family of his maternal grandfather, who was a Cossack. Later, he graduated from Nezhin Lyceum of Prince Bezborodko. His first attempt to enroll at the St. Petersburg Academy of arts was unsuccessful, but he gained an endorsement from an associate of Professor Bogdan Willewalde, was admitted, and studied there from 1879 to 1885 with Mikhail Clodt and Valery Jacobi as well as Willewalde, and won several awards. His painting "Прогулка" (the Walk) was bought by Pavel Tretyakov.

From 1885 to 1888, he studied in Paris with Édouard Detaille. The following year, he was named an Academician. From 1894 to 1918, he taught at the Academy, where he became a Professor in 1913.

In 1918, after the old Academy was abolished, he moved to Yalta with the Armed Forces of South Russia then, in 1922, to Simferopol, where he provided support to artistically talented youngsters and eventually organized an art school that received official state recognition. In 1934, he was given what would prove to be his largest commission: acting as managing consultant for a gigantic panorama depicting the Siege of Perekop.