Kalmakov, Nikolai Konstantinovich (January 23, 1873, Nervi, Italy - February 2, 1955, Schell, France) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator of Russian-Italian descent.
He was born and spent his childhood in Italy, on the Riviera. He was the son of a Russian general and an Italian. He did not receive systematic art education, he studied painting and anatomy independently in Italy, where he returned after graduating from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University (according to other sources - the Imperial School of Jurisprudence) in 1895. In 1900 he again came to Russia, first settled in Moscow, 1903 moved to St. Petersburg. The creative debut of the artist took place in the early 1900s, when he began to actively participate in exhibitions of various art associations, formally does not belong to any of them. His fantastic painting ("The Black Maidens", "Sakya Muni", "The Head of Astarte") was inspired at the same time by ancient oriental motifs, German romanticism and mysticism of the beginning of the 20th century. Passion for the occult, erotic symbolism and decorative make Kalmakov a vivid representative of Russian symbolism.
In 1912-1917 the artist closely communicated with different painters and took part in exhibitions of the association. Thanks to this circle, Kalmakov became acquainted with the work of European representatives of the modern style, primarily with the works of Aubrey Beardsley, whose style had a huge impact on Kalmakov's graphics and theatrical sketches.
In the 1900s and 1910s, the artist participated in exhibitions of the Union of Russian Artists (1908), the Moscow Association of Artists (1900), the Triangle group, the Modern Flows in Art (1908) and Impressionists (1909). In 1913 in St. Petersburg was the first personal exhibition of Kalmakov (in the Small Hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts), which caused a wide resonance in the press (from enthusiastic reviews of critics to devastating articles). The picturesque manner of this time was distinguished by ornamental sophistication, love for relief strokes, silver paint and gilding (self-portraits in the image of John the Baptist and Louis XIV). In 1915 he created a symbolic diptych "The Angel of the Punisher" and "George the Victorious".
In 1908-1916 he worked actively as a theatrical decorator, designed 11 performances in various theaters of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The most significant productions in his set design were «Salome» of Oscar Wilde (1908, VF Komissarzhevskaya Theater, production by N. Evreinov), «Anathema» of Leonid Andreev (1909, New Drama Theater, production by A. Sanin), «Judith» of F.Gerbel (1909, the theater of VF Komissarzhevskaya), the «Grand Prince of Moscow» of Lope de Vega (1911, the Old Theater), Calderon's «Life is a Dream» (1914, Chamber Theater, directed by A. Zonov), the first puppet show in Russia "The Power of Love and Magic" by Tirso de Molina (1916, Ancient Theater, together with M. Dobuzhinsky).
After 1916, Kalmakov did not return to the design of theater productions, except for an unsuccessful joint attempt with N. Evreinov to restore the play "Salome" in 1925 in exile. In his theatrical scenery and costume sketches, the artist showed himself as a master, endowed with a rich imagination and prone to exquisite and audacious coloring. Kalmakov was one of the first to create emotionally saturated costumes-images and use local color as the main expressive means (thereby becoming one of the precursors of minimalism in scenography).
In 1915, Kalmakov was drafted into the army, but soon after the efforts of M. Dobuzhinsky he was transferred to the historical commission of the Red Cross, where he began to work in collaboration with G. Narbut and S. Chekhonin. Full-scale sketches of the front life and a series of lithographed military postcards demonstrate the talent of the artist in the field of easel and printed graphics.
Here is what Kalmakov's friend, famous Russian actor of Georgian origin Alexander Mgebrov wrote in his memoirs:
«His paintings amazed with their monstrosity. They always portrayed some protoplasm, magnified millions of times, or the primordial cells of the spontaneous universal conception, or at least of conception on an ecumenical scale. It's hard to say at all what these pictures were for, but they deeply focused attention on the desire to come close to something truly devilish, capricious and devilishly sophisticated ... The leitmotif of his work was often eroticism of absolutely monstrous proportions, such eroticism as could only be the devil himself, if you imagine that there is something even more terrible and majestic than the devil himself over the devil ... Perhaps this is primordial chaos, maybe - chaos over chaos ...»
Let us turn to A. Mgebrov's memoirs "Life in the Theater" - here we can find unique information about the nature and habits of the artist:
«I remember one day when I visited him, he told me in a mysterious whisper that he had long been writing the Devil. "All my sketches are collected upstairs" ... His eyes sparkled at this moment with a strange brilliance ... "You understand ..." said Kalmakov, "I have been catching it for so long (ie, the devil) and I can not catch it ... Sometimes it will flash before me is his eye ... sometimes the tail ... sometimes the hoof of his legs ... but entirely I have not yet seen him, no matter how I guard and do not catch. But I did a hundred sketches ... do you want to show it? "And indeed, in the dusty attic of his strange house, he showed me then infinitely diverse, eerie and fantastic sketches of the eyes, tail, set of legs, and was convinced deeply that he had seen it all ...»
In 1920 the artist left Russia and emigrated to France (one version, through Constantinople, on the other - through Latvia or Estonia); from 1924 he settled in Paris, where in 1926-1947 he lived on the street Laroshfuko. In exile Kalmakov led a closed way of life, avoiding communication with the circles of former compatriots. If in the first years of emigration he arranged exhibitions of his works, which did not arouse much interest, then at the end of his life the master was in fact consigned to oblivion. His only friend was the artist S.P. Ivanov. Kalmakov died in 1955 in the old people's home of Schell.
In the 1964-1970s, the collectors Georges-Martin du Nord and Bertrand Collain du Bocage, who discovered 40 paintings of the artist on the "flea market", organized a series of his personal exhibitions in Paris and London, rediscovering the master's work to the public. As a theater artist and book illustrator, Kalmakov closest to the aesthetics of the late "World of Art", and in easel painting he was a consistent symbolist. Some of his Paris works from the 1920s to the 1930s reveal surreal elements, as well as features of an American poster combining fear and a detailed and smoothed manner of writing.
