Nikolay Nikolayevich Muravlyov (1926–2017) was born in the Rostov region, in the hamlet of Isayev, and for a long time, he did not even think about becoming an artist. After finishing seven years of middle school, he began working as an auto mechanic at the Likhaya station, repairing steam locomotives. He was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945”.
The year 1947 brought a turning point into Nikolay Muravlyov’s life when he came from the Rostov region to Komsomolsk-on-Amur as part of a construction battalion. The young railway worker discovered his passion for painting thanks to the studio of the Palace of Culture for Shipbuilders, its creative atmosphere, and Georgy Alexandrovich Tsivilyov.
For five years, from 1953 to 1958, Muravlyov studied at the Irkutsk Art College and then returned to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. There, he regularly participated in exhibitions and presented his landscapes, portraits, genre and historical paintings, that were dedicated, among other things, to the construction of the city. Nikolay Muravlyov dedicated a number of his works to the trips he took to the Russian Far East and Kamchatka. In 1968, Nikolay Muravlyov was accepted into the Artists’ Union of the USSR.
Muravlyov saw the painter’s task as “creating a painting that will be able to capture the viewer’s attention, and then the artist’s main dream will come true: they will be able to communicate with the viewer.”
The artist created the painting “An Ulch Woman” in 1957. The sitter is an elderly woman dressed in national clothes: a bright yellow robe is decorated with a traditional and obligatory pattern and tied with a braided belt, characteristic of this particular people. Thin yellow-turquoise bracelets are visible on the Ulch woman’s wrists, and she has massive earrings in her ears: the indigenous peoples viewed metal jewelry as strong amulets. The woman’s appearance is completed with high light brown boots, a low bun on her hair and a long smoking pipe (both Ulch men and women smoked).
The Ulch people led a sedentary life and were engaged in fishing and somewhat less in hunting and taiga fishing; they used to predominantly practice shamanism and animism. Currently, most of the Ulch people have become Orthodox Christians.
In the last year of his life, Nikolay Muravlyov donated all the paintings from his art studio to the Museum of Fine Arts.
The year 1947 brought a turning point into Nikolay Muravlyov’s life when he came from the Rostov region to Komsomolsk-on-Amur as part of a construction battalion. The young railway worker discovered his passion for painting thanks to the studio of the Palace of Culture for Shipbuilders, its creative atmosphere, and Georgy Alexandrovich Tsivilyov.
For five years, from 1953 to 1958, Muravlyov studied at the Irkutsk Art College and then returned to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. There, he regularly participated in exhibitions and presented his landscapes, portraits, genre and historical paintings, that were dedicated, among other things, to the construction of the city. Nikolay Muravlyov dedicated a number of his works to the trips he took to the Russian Far East and Kamchatka. In 1968, Nikolay Muravlyov was accepted into the Artists’ Union of the USSR.
Muravlyov saw the painter’s task as “creating a painting that will be able to capture the viewer’s attention, and then the artist’s main dream will come true: they will be able to communicate with the viewer.”
The artist created the painting “An Ulch Woman” in 1957. The sitter is an elderly woman dressed in national clothes: a bright yellow robe is decorated with a traditional and obligatory pattern and tied with a braided belt, characteristic of this particular people. Thin yellow-turquoise bracelets are visible on the Ulch woman’s wrists, and she has massive earrings in her ears: the indigenous peoples viewed metal jewelry as strong amulets. The woman’s appearance is completed with high light brown boots, a low bun on her hair and a long smoking pipe (both Ulch men and women smoked).
The Ulch people led a sedentary life and were engaged in fishing and somewhat less in hunting and taiga fishing; they used to predominantly practice shamanism and animism. Currently, most of the Ulch people have become Orthodox Christians.
In the last year of his life, Nikolay Muravlyov donated all the paintings from his art studio to the Museum of Fine Arts.
