Nasedkin, Anatoliy

“Happiness is when people understand you and when you realize that your work is consonant with the time …” (A.L. Nasedkin)

In 1943 Nasedkin joined the army as a volunteer. In the in the Orel-Kursk direction battles, he was seriously wounded. Long months passed in the field hospital and then in a hospital in Tula, Moscow, and Sverdlovsk. In 1945 he fully recovered. He received a medal For Valor, which was the dearest of all awards.

Nasedkin never parted with his album and pencil. When he returned to Kharkov after the war, he continued to improve his painting. In 1946 he entered the Kharkov Art Institute, where he was taught by famous masters M.G. Deregus and H.E. Svetlichny. There he became a professional artist. After graduating in 1951 Nasedkin acquired a specialty in mural painting.

In spring and summer of 1961, he painted a vivid canvas of meeting Yuri Gagarin who had returned from the first space flight. The painting shows how jubilant people warmly welcome the hero and his glorious deed. This work was presented at the Republican exhibition in Kiev, and then at the All-Union Exhibition in Moscow.

In the 60s pictures on the historical and revolutionary themes took the most important place in Ukrainian art. Nasedkin began working on the theme of the first years of Soviet power.

In 1968 the work Food Squad (Requisition) appeared on the all-union and republican exhibitions. Nasedkin received the title of Honored Artist. For the works about the village, Nasedkin was awarded by the Shevchenko National Prize in 1985. Many years passed before Nasedkin felt able to create a work devoted to the military theme – the painting No Land Beyond the Volga (1975). “In No Land Beyond the Volga I showed a soldier of

Stalingrad. For a long time, I was searching for a person that could reflect heroic traits of all the people who won the mortal combat” – he said.

In 1976 in Kharkov and then in Kiev a very successful exhibition of Nasedkin’s works took place. It became a kind of summary of his twenty-five years’ work. He was recognized as one of the best representatives of the Kharkov art school.

Since the early 70s and to the end of his life Nasedkin was fond of still life and landscape painting. He liked to convey freshness and beauty of a just collected bouquet of wildflowers, or a momentary state of nature, or the dynamics of motion, color and composition which characterized the spirit of the time.

In the early 90s, he returned to the theme of Shevchenko again. The artist began several large-scale canvases dedicated to the great Kobzar making lots of sketches. Many invitations to the new exhibitions came from England, France and Japan in the late 80s and early 90s. Having celebrated his 70th birthday the artist was full of energy and plans, but on July 26, 1994, Nasedkin died.