BEKKER Nikolay Nikolaevich

April 12, 1877 (St. Petersburg) — after 1932 (France)

Painter, graphic artist, scene-designer

Bekker was born to family of an architect and academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts N. F. Bekker. He received a diploma in communication lines engineering. In 1901–1910 Bekker studied at the Higher Art School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture at the Imperial Academy of Arts, at the battle-scene painting class under P. O. Kovalevsky, F. A. Roubaud, and Y. F. Tsionglinsky. Since 1912 he participated in exhibitions of St. Petersburg’s Society of Artists; since 1913 he was a member of the Society.

Bekker lived in St. Petersburg (Petrograd). He created portraits and landscapes in the manner of salon academism of the beginning of the 20th century. Bekker also painted in the technique of pastel. He had a reputation of a fashionable portrait painter; he painted a number of portraits of the representatives of the high society: actresses and ballet dancers. The art critic O. Bazankur wrote about Bekker’s portrait of M. Ginsburg: “The portrait was painted in matt silver colors as a black silk with pearls; it made a vivid impression: the model seemed to be a pink pearl in the frame of soft silk and matt necklaces” (O. Bazankur At the exhibitions // Petrogradskie Vedomosti (“Petrograd Bulletins”). 1915. September 30).

After 1917 Bekker emigrated and lived in Paris. In 1924–1932 he exposed his works at the National Salon of Fine Arts; since 1925 he was a member of the Salon.