The Museum of Kyiv History, its branch the Museum of the Avant-Garde, and Les Noms Galerie present the exhibition “Kolya Novikov: Outcast, Rebel, Genius Artist” — an art project that immerses visitors in the life and work of one of the most underestimated genius artists of the 20th century.

Mykola Novikov was an outstanding artist who became an Odessa’s myth already during his lifetime. Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa form the geographical triangle that shaped the development and spread of the Ukrainian artistic avant-garde in the first half of the 20th century. In the 1960s, during the period of the “Thaw,” a circle of artists emerged who returned to avant-gardism, rejecting socialist realism. Among them was a representative of the Odessa underground — Kolya Novikov.

Since his birth, Novikov had to fight for his life. Poverty, the murder of his mother by the Nazis, a father who lost both legs in the war, the death of his sister in an orphanage, immersion in the criminal world, arrests. The leitmotif of the exhibition is Novikov’s eternal forced rebellion against a system that accepted him neither as an artist nor as a person.

His life story is a harmonious combination of rebellion, marginality, and genius, while his paintings are a visual manifesto of inner protest, expressed in an aggressive and nervous manner of painting. The exhibition “Kolya Novikov: Outcast, Rebel, Genius Artist” is like a journey through the eccentric life and creative legacy of the artist, reflecting both the dramatic struggle of an extraordinary personality with the world and the constant search for one’s place in a society that rejects, ignores, and surrounds with hostility.

“This exhibition project demonstrates how strong the ideals of freedom and independence can manifest through art created outside socially defined frameworks. It encourages the audience to reflect on an artist who was able to combine love for the world with a rejection of its rules,” emphasizes Victoria Mukha, General Director of the Museum of Kyiv History.

The exhibition features several interactive thematic sections — “Rebellion or Freedom,” “Myth and Legend,” “Woman,” “Odessa as Context and Inspiration” — each symbolizing important stages in the life of Mykola Novikov.

Exhibition curator: Mykola Petrychenko — Senior Research Fellow.

Project experts: Yurii Komelkov — Head of the Museum of the Avant-Garde branch, Yurii Hutsu — collector.

Project partner: Stedley Art Foundation