The Fechin House and Parsons Galleries are located within easy walking distance in the Downtown Taos Historic District.

 Parsons invites you to visit.

"Everything he touches comes alive!"

Nicolai Fechin was born in Kazan, Russia, where he spent his youth attending the Kazan Art School. His father was a gilder, woodcarver and icon maker, and Nicolai continued in his family's artistic tradition, going on to become an accomplished painter, woodcarver, sculptor, and draftsman.

Painting remained Fechin's primary artistic pursuit throughout his life and today he is recognized mostly for his portraits.

As an art student Nicolai garnered many accolades, including an invitation to his first international exhibition in 1910 at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, and a gold medal prize at the Prix de Rome. It was during this time that his work first caught the eye of the American public, which would later prove important as Fechin eventually sought help in immigrating to the United States in 1923 after weathering the Bolshevik Revolution in his homeland.

The Importance of the Special Quality of Light in Taos:

The high desert and mountain light is brighter in Taos, enabling artists to better "see" the details and shades of colors.

"The first step for the artist (is) to learn to see these primary colors and to distinguish them separately one from the other."

- Nicolai Fechin

"All the great Taos Artists were awe struck with the Light”.  Victor Higgins said Taos captured him "because of the light.  There is the best light to be found anywhere. There is more color in the landscape and the people than elsewhere."  Barbara Latham, Taos painter of brilliant joy and insight, said:  “I had lived under the brilliant western sky all summer, but I had never experienced such brilliance."  Blumenschein said of Taos, "The sky about was clear clean blue with sharp moving clouds. The color, the reflective character of the landscape, the drama of the vast spaces, the superb beauty and severity of the hills, stirred me deeply." "I was receiving...the first great unforgettable inspiration of my life." 

Taos light needs to be seen to be experienced.  Parsons invites you to visit the Galleries to see Taos Light.

"Fortunate indeed is the collector or museum that has a painting done during this period of Fechin's continued growth."

- Northridge biography

Nicolai Fechin Landscape Paintings

Nicolai Fechin Portraits

Fechin said, "A brush is a painters only weapon. With it he must attack the canvas without hesitation.

He is the boss, not his material."

He was commissioned to paint Lenin (in 1918), Karl Marx, Frieda Lawrence, Willa Cather,

Mabel Dodge Luhan, artist Eleanora Kissel, W.L. Clark, John Burnham, Ralph Van Vechten, Duane Van Vechten, Lillian Gish, and

Oliver Perry as well as American Generals, including Douglas MacArthur.

While he lived and worked in Taos, Fechin's palette changed, brightening with his appreciation and growing love. He used different backgrounds (even cottage cheese and rabbit skin glue) to achieve high gloss or matte to underlie his colors. He reduced the oil content of his paints. His palette included Lead or Zinc White (which he used with caution to minimize cracking), Yellow Orche, Cadmium Yellow, Vandike Brown, Burnt Sienna, Mineral (Maganese) Violet, Rose Madder, Emerald Green, Ivory Black, Mussini Sunproof Rose, Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine Blue.  He did not varnish his paintings.

"He felt particularly close to the Indians and his greatest American works were of Indians," Fechin's daughter and only child, Eya

said.  "He thought Pueblo Indians possessed the same spirit as well as other qualities of the Tartars of his homeland. He always painted his Indians as they were, never creating artificial scenes with non authentic props."

“He would begin by looking at an empty canvas.  He would look at it and say, ‘This is a beautiful space and the only job of the

artist is to fill that space in with harmony and balance.’  - Eya Fechin

Eya, Fechin's daughter, grew from, “being my mother's little girl... to my father's closest friend."

Nicolai Fechin House

About the Nicolai Fechin House, Eya said, "The house is the masterpiece of the collection. It really has to be looked at that way.” But after suffering terribly from his divorce, Fechin stopped building.  The Fechin House in Taos, New Mexico is the only home he ever built.  It was beautifully repaired by Taos Pueblo Indian Joe Martinez.  The Fechin House and studio are open to the public.

The Fechin House and Parsons Galleries are all located within walking distance in the Downtown Taos Historic District.

Parsons invites you to visit.

Nicolai Fechin's Wife

Alexandra Belkovich In Taos, ca. 1928

(from Forrest Fenn Archive)

One of the greatest influences on Fechin's life was his beautiful wife, Alexandra Belkovitch (1893 - 1983),

the daughter of the director of the Kazan School of Art, whom he married when she was still 16.  She authored "March of the

Past".  In his deep love, Nicolai named her "Tinka", an abbreviation Katinka.  She said, "A great artist he is!  Everything he touches comes alive!"

Fechin explains the source of lasting value in Art:

"A high degree of expertise in technique has always had, and always will have, a predominate place in art.

 The subject, in itself, has value only according to the mode of the day. Tomorrow it will be superseded by a new fashion or fad.

With the passing of time, the subject loses much of its meaning. But the fine execution of that subject retains its value.”

- Nicolai Fechin

The importance of practice and experience:

“No one can teach you how to paint and how to draw except you yourself. You cannot learn how to paint by watching a well-trained master painting, until you yourself, have learned how to paint with some understanding first. Only by the path of much practice and experience can mature results be reached.”  - Nicolai Fechin

"The beginner is always tempted to take the path of least resistance. He usually takes as his model the reproductions of some

fashionable painter and copies them, believing that by doing so he acquires knowledge. Such a beginning is unsound, because it

starts with the end product of the original work- the finished results of an artist’s long and patient toil. Superficially absorbing the

final expression, the student bypasses the process of attaining these results and does not comprehend at all the work of creating."

"Oversimplification, as well as any book instruction on how to paint, are very inadequate and often very dangerous.  This should be kept in mind whenever reading about any technique of painting!"

- Nicolai Fechin

"My way of drawing and painting can be taught only through direct visual perception and it is almost impossible to describe it. An

attitude toward painting and a few technical fundamentals can be discussed, however- but always with a warning not to take my

observations in an overly literal or rigidly set manner..." -Nicolai Fechin

Value in Art comes from creative ideas:

"Before defining his own field of work, it is essential for the beginner to acquire a great a variety of knowledge as possible. The

more consummate his technique, the easier it will be for him to free himself from all dependence upon a subject. What an artist

fills his canvas with is not so important. What is important is how he does it. It is sad if an artist becomes a slave to the object he

seeks to portray. He must be able to deal with it according to his own point of view. In other words, the portrayed object must

serve as nothing more than an excuse to fill his canvas. Only then does his work acquire value for an artist, when it passes

through the filter of his creative idea. Therefore, a beginner must always avoid the conventional, whether it is color, line or, above

all of course, in the choice of the subject itself." -Nicolai Fechin

Fechin outlines his secrets to creating colors:

"Any standardization is negative in its meaning. If conventional shades and colors are used, the ability to see them in reality is lost. It is essential that the artist should regard every new painting as an entirely special world of color, light, form and line. Every new canvas is a completely new challenge" - Nicolai Fechin

Fechin on the importance of learning to "see":

"As a matter of fact an artist has to deal with only three basic colors: red, blue, yellow (all the rest are combinations of these

fundamental colors). Everyone knows this, but few pay attention to the fact. Thus the first step for the artist to learn to see these

primary colors and to distinguish them separately one from the other." -Nicolai Fechin

Fechin explains how he builds colors:

"The beginner usually endeavors laboriously and literally to match colors he sees (or those he imagines) by mixing endlessly the

paints on his palette, and the results are dirty and dead. Everything which is alive reflects color and every reflection is a vibration.

Hence, if one wishes to produce this living vibration one must resort to the use of pure basic colors and “build” with them in such a

manner as to give this living effect and vibrancy."  -Nicolai Fechin

"For my own work, I do not like to use medium. This dissolves the paints too much. The pigments mix together and cannot retain

their individual distinctiveness and thus again lose much of their fresh intensity."  - Nicolai Fechin

Fechin explains some differences between Novelty and Art:

“Artists and critics compete with each other in their endeavors to destroy the traditional approach to the fundamental principles

required for the careful technical execution of any work. In their mad pursuit of novelty, they do not have enough time for a

conscientious development of their ideas and, as a result, they have had to make legitimate that which I would call “illiteracy” in

the arts."  - Nicolai Fechin

“Concept or rendition: which is more important? That is a basic question in art. In the first case it is frequently said: “Not badly

conceived but poorly executed!” Such evaluation is no credit to an artist. On the contrary, fine workmanship makes one forgive

even triviality. In such cases it is said: “Stupid, but devilishly well executed!”  - Nicolai Fechin

Fechin shows how all parts work together:

"The artist must never forget that he is dealing with the entire canvas, and not with any one section of it. Regardless of what he sets out to paint , the problem remains one and the same. With his own creative originality, he must fill in his canvas and make of it an organic whole. There must not be any particularly favored spot in the painting..."

Fechin explains the training of a Master Artist:

"An artist should work every day with what is at hand"  ". . . It is necessary to exercise the hand and the eye the same way it is

necessary for a musician to exercise every day his hearing and his hands." (Fechin, The Builder, 1982)  - Nicolai Fechin

Fechin reminds us of the powers of creativity:

"I have been asked which of the arts I consider most important. For me, no one particular art is greater than another. I can only

say this; when you find yourself in the presence of creativeness…take off your hat."  - Nicolai Fechin

Fechin the Prodigy:

Fechin worked with stiff brushes, palette knives and even his fingers (he contracted lead poisoning that way).

His radiant, living effect was created by using multiple layers of paint over different back ground medias.

"Also for myself, I do not like to use medium. This dissolves the paints too much.

The pigments mix up together, do not retain their individual distinctness and thus again lose much of their fresh intensity."

Fechin tried to portray truth. His masterworks teach us to "see".

Contact Parsons for Fechin paintings value

Parsons is where to sell Fechin paintings

Parsons: Fechin painting buyer

by  Robert Parsons

and   Ashley Rolshoven