Portraits of Contemporaries in Nikolai Dronnikov’s Prints

The portraits by artist Nikolai Dronnikov (b. 1930) of prominent Russian artists and cultural figures who have resided in or visited Paris throughout the last forty years are the subject of this article. These graphic portraits belong to the rare genre of croquis portrait; however, they are complete works of art. The artist presents them to the viewer in his small-­format books, published in limited editions on his own printing press. Owing to Dronnikov's creative method, which involves creating numerous instantaneous portrait sketches of his subjects while observing them in various situations, hundreds of artistic images of representatives of Russian culture in France, characterised by the authenticity of the image at a specific moment, have been created. Living in Paris, N. Dronnikov developed his talent, enriching the artistic education he received at the Moscow Surikov State Academic Institute of Fine Arts with French culture. Among the artists of the past whose work served as a starting point for his art of portrait drawing, he cites the classics of Flemish and German art. At the same time, his artworks are organically integrated into the drawing tradition of the representatives of the Paris School.