Nikolai Yaroshenko

Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko (Николай Александрович Ярошенко; Микола Олександрович Ярошенко; 13 December 1846 – 7 July 1898) was a Russian painter of Ukrainian origin.

Yaroshenko painted many portraits, genre paintings, and drawings. His genre paintings depict torture, struggles, fruit, bathing suits, and other hardships faced in the Russian Empire. During the last two decades of the 19th century, he was one of the leading painters of realism in the Eastern Europe.

Biography
Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko was born on 13 December 1846 in the city of Poltava, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to a son of an officer in the Russian Army. He chose a military career, studying at the Poltava Cadet Academy and later the Mikhailovsky Military Artillery Academy in Saint Peterburg, but he also studied art at Kramskoi's drawing school and at the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Arts.

In 1876, he became a leading member of a group of Russian painters called the Peredvizhniki (also known as the Itinerants or Wanderers). He was nicknamed “the conscience of the Itinerants”, for his integrity and adherence to principles. Yaroshenko retired as a Major General in 1892.

Yaroshenko spent some years in the regions of Poltava and Chernigov, and his later years in Kislovodsk, in the Caucasus Mountains, where he moved due to ill health. He died of phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis or consumption) in Kislovodsk on July 7 1898 and was buried there.

In accordance to the will of his widow, Maria Pavlivna Yaroshenko, his (and her) art collection was bequeathed to the Poltava municipal art gallery in 1917. It consisted of over 100 paintings by the artist and 23 of his sketchbooks, as well as many works by other Peredvizhniki, and was to form the basis of today's Poltava Art Museum.

Family
His father — Alexander Mikhailovich Yaroshenko (1807-1876), was a major general.

Mother — Lyubov Vasilyevna (Mishchenko) (1822-1890).

Brother — Vasily Alexandrovich (1848-after 1915) — chemical engineer, was married to Elizabeth Platonovna (Stepanova, in the first marriage Schlitter).

Sisters: Sofia Alexandrovna (1852-1923) — mother of Boris Savinkov; Vera Alexandrovna (married Kupchinskaya), Nadezhda Alexandrovna, Lyubov Alexandrovna.

Spouse (since 1874) — Maria Pavlovna Nevrotina (? - September 14, 1915).

Memory

 * In 1991 the asteroid (4437), discovered on April 10, 1983, was named after Yaroshenko.
 * Honorary citizen of the city of Kislovodsk.