Kuzma Nikolayev, painter and arranger of the artistic life of the Urals

Facts of Kuzma Nikolayev's life and creative activities are specified in this work. The artist was one of arrangers of the artistic life of the Urals in the first Soviet decades. In the early 1920s Nikolayev provided visits of Moscow Avant garde artists to Orenburg but later he fought against them. He supported establishment of the Orenburg branch of the UNOVIS, a group of followers of Kazimir Malevich. He rendered lectures on the new arts. His «leftist» pictures received criticism in the press. Later, on the breaking point of the époques, he became one of the founders of the Orenburg branch of the AKhRR. In the early 1930s he depicted development of Magnitogorsk and Cheliabinsk cities in his paintings. Extracts from K. Nikolayev's newspaper statements of various periods are published