Nikolay Kravchenko

Nicolai Ivanovich Kravchenko (, ; 1867–1941) was a battle painter, journalist and writer from the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union.

Biography Kravchenko studied at Odessa's gymnasium and municipal Realschule, and Odessa's school of fine arts, which he graduated from in 1888 with a silver medal. In the same year Kravchenko moved to Saint Petersburg and entered the class of battle painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts. He was immediately taken to the second course to Bogdan Willewalde.

The collision with old professors and unwillingness to obey their daily requirements led the young artist to the realization that his further stay at the academy was useless. That's why he came back to Odessa. In 1891, Kravchenko went to Paris, where at the same time he worked in both Academie Julian and the Academie Colarossi. With the help of his friend, who then was studying in Ecole des beaux arts, Kravchenko drawings were shown to Professor Jerome, who willingly took him as a student. Lessons at French academy of fine arts didn't interfere with artist's work at home and drawing some portraits. One of them (Dr's. Brissot) was taken to the Salon Champs de Mars and attracted the attention of Paris press. In 1893 Kravchenko showed his sketch of a Russian girl student at the same salon.

Admiral N.I.Skrydlov. Commander of the Russian squadron in the Pacific Ocean 1900-1902 Artist N. Kravchenko.

At the same time he got acquainted with Suvorin and Skolkovsky. They persuaded Kravchenko to move to Saint Petersburg. After returning from a trip, Kravchenko was honored to be invited to Livadia, where he demonstrated to the Sovereign a report on his journey in the form of several hundred studies, drawings and sketches, which illustrated battlefields of 1900, types of soldiers and Chinese, views of Beijing and many other items. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Kravchenko went to the Far East and was a witness of the death of battleship Petropavlovsk in Port Arthur, which he captured and vividly described in New Time. Kravchenko's painting "The death of the destroyer Petropavlovsk on Japanese mines" is situated in exposition of the Central Naval Museum of St. Petersburg. At the theaters of war, Kravchenko did not stay very long. His impressions about the events of the Russo-Japanese War are described by him in the book To the War (St. Petersburg, 1906).The events that he reproduced in a series of drawings that are placed in the «Manchuria» albums of the artist Martynov, in the «Chronicle of the War with Japan», in edition by D. N. Dubensky's and in the Chronicle of the War with Japan on land and at sea edition by V. Berezovsky's . By the order of the Russian Emperor, Kravchenko completed a large portrait and a half-length portrait with the help of colored pencils. This portrait was brought to Nicholas II.

He died in Leningrad on November 22, 1941. A large family of Russian battle painter, journalist and writer Nikolai Ivanovich Kravchenko lived in Leningrad before the war. Son Nikolai served as an architect, daughter Elena was a senior typist, and daughter Zinaida was an actress. There were also four grandchildren. Only two family members survived the Leningrad blockade in the winter of 1941 – the grandchildren Galina and Nikolai.

Kravchenko's paintings are situated in the State Russian Museum, in the State Tretyakov Gallery, in the Central Naval Museum, in the Chekhov Museum (Moscow), in museums of England, Belgium and many other countries.

Exhibitions The artist executed a series of paintings based on these drawings and sketches and in 1904 he arranged their exhibition in St. Petersburg, in 1905 – at the World Exhibition in Liège, in 1906 – in Moscow, and in 1910 – in London. At the World Exhibition in Liège, the artist was assigned a separate room in the art section. The watercolor "Chinese Watchtower" was bought by the Belgian Museum in Antwerp.