Ice Ridge near Dikson Island

Loy Nikolay Pavlovich 16.02.1925 - 06.05.2004. People's Artist of Russia, painter, graphic artist Nikolay Pavlovich was born on February 16, 1925 in the city of Molochansk, Zaporozhye region, Ukraine. In 43, he went to the front and fought until the Day of the Great Victory. In 1950 he finished his military service. And already at an advanced age he entered the Kharkiv State Art Institute, from which he graduated in the 55th year with honors. Loy arrives in Norilsk in the 60th. He founded a children's art school and a fine art studio in this polar city. For many years he was the chairman of the city Art Council and the exhibition committee, was elected a deputy of the City Council of Norilsk. For 20 years, from 1960 to 1980, he worked in the Far North and the Arctic became his creative homeland. He traveled a lot on dog sleds and ice reconnaissance planes, on reindeer and the nuclear icebreaker Lenin. He visited Dixon, many polar stations, Severnaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, polar stations with a sketchbook. And in 1968 he made a trip by car to all the republics of the Soviet Union. For about ten years, Nikolai Pavlovich worked in Krasnoyarsk. There he was elected deputy chairman of the Board of the Krasnoyarsk Organization and the Union of Artists of the RSFSR, a member of the board, a member of the regional exhibition committee. Since 1987, he has lived in the city of Slavyansk-on-Kuban. During this time, he opened permanent exhibitions of his works in schools, cultural centers, and children's art school. Over 70 works were donated to the Slavic Museum of Local Lore. Nikolai Pavlovich was awarded eleven government awards, a medal of the Peace Foundation, a gold medal "Laureate" and commemorative medals for participation in art exhibitions. In 1976, Loy was awarded the title of "Honored Artist of Russia", and in 2003, for his outstanding contribution to the development of the country's culture, he was awarded the title of "People's Artist of the Russian Federation". This is the only artist in the North Caucasus with such an honorary title. On May 6, 2004, Nikolai Pavlovich Loy passed away. Many generations of Russians will enjoy the contemplation of his canvases, receive a great charge of positive energy from this, because even from those paintings depicting untouched northern snows and ice, the extraordinary warmth of the author emanates. Truly unique canvases by N. P. Loy are painted in watercolor on wet paper. Although this technique is known to some artists, experts immediately note the totality of the most complex painting techniques (there are about 10 of them) in Loevsky watercolors. Watercolor paints have long captivated the masters with their tenderness and lightness of the palette. But Loy worked real miracles with professional watercolors (without gouache) on absolutely raw paper, which he soaked in a special titanium bath for several days. The complexity of the work lies in the fact that the paints instantly spread, soaking into the top layer of the wet sheet, as well as in the speed of work (1-3 hours) while the paper dries. The picture cannot be postponed, waiting for a new inspiration. The artist has a couple of hours to create a masterpiece, pouring out on paper the most intimate feelings and love for beauty. Loy never revealed the secrets of his skill, and often artists, standing at exhibitions in front of his watercolor works, were amazed how it was possible to create it in such large formats (110-80cm)! For a long time (1960-1980) he worked in the Far North, which determined the main direction of the artist's work. It was the works of the "northern" cycle that brought the author wide fame, and the artistic community dubbed him the "singer of the Arctic". Personal exhibitions have repeatedly been held in Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk and other cities of Russia. As the best examples of Soviet painting, N. P. Loy's works were donated to Fidel Castro and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau. In 2002, several of the master's best paintings were presented to the President of Russia V.V. To Putin by the governor of the Stavropol Territory A.L. Chernyarov as a gift. N.P. Loy's paintings and watercolors are in regional museums of the former USSR, as well as in art museums in France, Canada, the USA, Holland, Japan, Austria, Finland, Cuba. According to experts, Nikolai Pavlovich Loy is one of the best masters not only in Russia, but also in the world! His paintings have been exhibited at more than 150 exhibitions. Reproductions of his works and articles about his work were published in many popular newspapers and magazines: Izvestia, Trud, Ogonyok, Smena, Moscow, Friendship of Peoples, Artist, Soviet Union, etc. Now N. Loy's paintings and watercolors are in many private collections and national museums in France, Canada, USA, Holland, Japan, Austria, Finland, Cuba. As the best examples of Soviet painting, N.P. Loy's works were donated to Fidel Castro, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, the newspaper of French Communists, "Yumanite". Source: Loy N.P. Blue Blizzard. The Arctic: An album of reproductions./ N.P. Loy; Introductory article by M. Krivosheeva– L.: Artist of the RSFSR. – 90s. The North is the main theme in the work of the Norilsk artist. He can be called a singer of the Arctic. A Kharkiv resident who has graduated from an Art Institute becomes a convinced enthusiast of mastering a completely new complex life material for him. The Arctic is a difficult topic. These wild uninhabited spaces were called "the kingdom of death", "white silence". But this "country of cold horror," as Fridtjof Nansen said about it, was awakened by the heroic work of the Soviet people. When Loy first came to Norilsk, he was captured by the harsh grandeur of the nature of the Arctic, and the greatness of the feat of the people who conquered the Taimyr tundra. The artist has traveled thousands of kilometers and traveled these vast expanses. The Khatangai tundra, the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea, Dixon Island and the Archipelago of the Northern Land – everything conquered him and fascinated him with an inexhaustible wealth of new motifs. Nikolai Pavlovich traveled a lot not only in the North, but also throughout the country. He traveled all over Taimyr on reindeer and dog sleds, traveled the Northern Sea Route on the nuclear-powered ship Lenin, and drove around Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Carpathians, and the Baltic States. "Having visited different parts of our vast Homeland, I now have some right to compare," the artist writes in his travel notes, "and I can say that only the mountainous regions of the Pamirs can compete with the Polar Region in terms of saturation and richness of colors. I had to paint a sunset in the Laptev Sea. The pure orange colors of the palette seemed dirty compared to what was happening in the sky. Writing it was a difficult task, but also a rare, incomparable pleasure." Not a monotonous and bleak dull land, but a particle of our Homeland, warmed by the artist's love, appears before us in his numerous works. "The North is amazing in that, quite unexpectedly, it suddenly offers the artist a task that cannot be solved by previous, already proven means ... If in the middle zone nature somewhere allows "repetition", sometimes gives a combination of tones and colors already similar to what was seen earlier, then the Arctic is infinitely changeable. And every time you look..."  Sometimes I managed to find a lot. The artist's landscapes are a new facet in the artistic cognition of the world. They conquer with their genuine truthfulness, realistic persuasiveness and authenticity, their optimistic attitude. A lyricist by the nature of his talent, Loy in his works managed to convey his cheerful, festive perception of the world, his love for bright colorful combinations, light poetry of direct feeling. In the bottomless sky of the polar night, bright flashes of the northern lights. The finest iridescences of colors flutter, green columns of light stream down, snow burns with a purple flame. And all this riot of color and light for two small houses on the edge of the earth. The windows glow calmly and busily in them, the thin arrows of the radio station masts fearlessly stretch into the flaming sky. A blizzard is blowing. Blue snow snakes of the snowdrift (grass-roots wind) reach the windows of the fifth floor, and above the city there is a bright, warm-toned sky ("Blue Blizzard").  Black copra mines and slender buildings of factories, silhouettes of giant pipes and placers of electric lights in the darkness of the polar night – all this appears in landscapes as a hymn to the creative work of man.  The creative manner of the artist captivates with harmony and richness of color, boldness of combinations, imaginative solution of the theme. Careful attention to the brightness and power of specific life observations helps him to saturate the picturesque image with a wide palette of expressive colors, to find subtle and convincing color consonances. His best landscapes are imbued with a joyful sense of the beauty of life. Inexhaustible wealth and generous beauty of the far Arctic. Source: Davydenko I.M. Artists of Krasnoyarsk./ I.M. Davydenko. - Krasnoyarsk: Krasnoyarsk Book Publishing House, 1978. - 182s. Since the beginning of the 60s, a group of professional artists of Polar Norilsk has been working fruitfully. It is headed by Nikolai Pavlovich Loy (1925). Here the artist energetically joined the artistic and social life of the city. He organized a fine art studio, took part in the organization of a children's art school and was its director, led the work on the decoration of the city and its public buildings. The harsh grandeur of the nature of the Arctic, the feat of people transforming the Taimyr tundra, conquered the southerner, he enthusiastically took up the development of northern material. In 1964, N. Loy brought for the first time to an exhibition in Krasnoyarsk paintings that convey the dazzling multicolour nature of the Arctic, In many of his works the artist managed to show the world of uninhabited places full of mysterious charm. "Red Tundra", "Misty rainbow", "The earth is blooming", "Red Autumn", "Lights".