Don Sahli -

Russian School of Painting

An Apprenticeship with Sergei Bongart

As a painter, Don Sahli has an extraordinary legacy in Russian Impressionism. Most artists will say they have been influenced and studied the work of great painters like Monet, Degas, Whistler, Homer and Sargent. Their knowledge and exposure are limited to what can be seen and read in books. Sahli experienced the first-hand opportunity of studying with the great Russian master, Sergei Bongart.

Although many artists of today studied with Sergei Bongart, only a few were invited to work and interact with Bongart in an "old world" type of apprenticeship. In 1982, Don Sahli attended one of Bongart's Idaho workshops. Bongart, recognizing Sahli's talent, gave him a three-month scholarship to continue his studies in Los Angeles at the Bongart School of Art. At the end of this period, Bongart said, "So... me thinks you may be pretty good painter... if you continue to study here at school."

For the next three years, Don Sahli attended Bongart's classes in Los Angeles and Rexburg, Idaho. During this period with his mentor, Sahli was taught in the "old academic way" not to paint by formula, but how "to see" the relationship of color, form and design in nature. He spent his time trying to master what Bongart was teaching him... painting and painting. Or, he was assisting Bongart in whatever way was needed. "Sergei taught me much more than just painting. I was young and naive, from a small town in the Texas Panhandle. Sergei showed me a world I had not known about. He exposed me to foods, languages, different customs and religions as well as his vast knowledge of history." By the time Bongart died in 1985, he had a life-changing influence on Don Sahli.

As the last scholarship student and apprentice of Sergei Bongart, Sahli formed a faithful friendship with the Russian master painter. This relationship is a direct link to Ilya Repin, the "fountainhead of modern Russian painting." The heritage is as follows: Ilya Repin taught Nicolai Fechin, Fechin taught Peter Kotov, Peter Kotov taught Sergei Bongart, and Bongart taught Don Sahli. This legacy has inspired Sahli's work.

To meet his goal of carrying on the legacy of his teacher, Sahli opened Sahli School of Art in Evergreen, Colorado in 1995. "I opened the art school to give the 'hungry' student a safe place to learn and work. My teacher taught, his teacher taught, and I wanted to keep this tradition alive and give something back. It's also a critical aspect of the creative process...it helps one to articulate what one is thinking and doing. I myself have learned from the process, and I am a much better painter since I began teaching."

Sergei Bongart immigrated from Russia to the United States in 1948 and lived and taught in both Idaho and Santa Monica, California. Bongart's Russian background had a lasting imprint on his painting; his well-known large brush-strokes and broad color masses show signs of Russian impressionism.

"I met Sergei Bongart in 1982 at his workshop in Idaho. During Bongart's painting demonstration, I saw him use color and paint as no one had before. I knew right then that this was a Master Painter and I had to learn from him. Sergei did not teach one how to paint but how to 'see'. Sergei was a great painter, poet and teacher - he changed my life forever." - Don Sahli

Bongart, who painted with music in the background, said, "To me, color is like music. It must sing." He graduated from the Russian Academy of Arts in Kiev and painted and studied in Prague, Vienna, and Munich. He enjoyed early success as a painter. His work had begun to sell by the time he was eighteen and at age twenty, his paintings were hanging in museums. "I believe that painting is not to tell a story, but that a painting should evoke a mood," he declared. Bongart was an Associate of the National Academy of Design, and a member of the American Watercolor Society, England's Royal Society of Arts, and the National Academy of Western Art.

For additional reading on the life and art of Sergei Bongart, we recommend SERGEI BONGART by Mary N. Balcomb. For more information or to purchase the book, visit www.marynbalcomb.com.

NICOLAI FECHIN

Nicolai Fechin was born in the village of Kazan, Russia, the son of Ivan Alexandrovitch Fechin, an accomplished wood carver, icon maker and gilder. At the age of thirteen, Fechin was ready to begin his life’s work. The art school of Kazan, a branch of the celebrated Imperial Academy of Art of St. Petersburg, had just opened and the promising youth received a six-year scholarship. His work appeared in America for the first time at the International Exhibit of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In both western Europe and America, Fechin was greeted with instant acclaim. Among such distinguished contemporaries as Claude Monet and Picasso, he won his first prizes and medals.

Hardships following the Bolshevik Revolution eventually led Fechin to take his wife, Alexandra, and his daughter, Eya to the United States in 1923. The family first settled in New York, but not for long. Since a child, he had loved the somber forests near the Tartar Border near his homeland. He found their equal in the high country forests of the New Mexico Plateau, the old adobe villages, the Pueblo, Apache and Navajo tribes of the American Southwest. He moved his family to Taos, where a small community of artists also made their home. He purchased his home in the middle of seven acres adjoining the Indian reservation. His father’s influence took over as Fechin spent the next several years handcrafting every viga, corbel, lentel, swinging door and niche for icons. Today, the house itself remains an architectural work of art.

For seven years, before finally settling in Santa Monica, Fechin took great delight in the abundance of subject matter the area provided him. He worked with vibrant hues to paint the native people and traveled south in Mexico to sketch the many faces of its people in charcoal, pencil and pastel.

The sketches reveal the superb draftsmanship underlying all his work. Author Frank Waters once wrote of Fechin’s paintings, “How they shout and sing! No one man has his intensity of color. Few can equal his masterful draftsmanship. Whatever his subject, Fechin’s work is stamped with his immediately recognizable style.”

For additional reading on the life and art of Nicolai Fechin, we recommend NICOLAI FECHIN by Mary N. Balcomb. For more information or to purchase the book, visit www.marynbalcomb.com

ILYA EFIMOVICH REPIN

Ilya Efimovich Repin was born in 1844 in the town of Chuguyev. He died in 1930 in Kuokkala, which is now Repino. He was a painter, master draftsman, watercolor artist, illustrator, etcher and lithographer, as well as a great teacher, who had tremendous influence over his students, who included Igor Grabar, Konstantine Somov, Philip Maliavin, Isaac Brodsky, and Nicolai Fechin, as well as many others.

Ilya studied at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1864 to 1871. He was an Academy of Arts fellowship holder in Italy and France from 1872 to 1876. Repin received the title of Academician in 1876. He lived in Chuguyev from 1876 to 1877, then in Moscow from 1877 to 1882. St. Petersburg was his home from 1882 until 1900, and after 1900 he resided in Kuokkala. Repin traveled extensively throughout Europe and Russia.

Repin was the professor and Head of the Studio at Higher Art School of the Academy of Arts in 1894-1897. He became a rector in 1898 & 1899 and also taught at the private school/studio of Princess M.K. Tenisheva in St. Petersburg. He was a member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibits from 1878 to 1891, the again in 1897. His paintings were shown at association exhibits from 1874. Repin took part in exhibits of the “World of Art” Asscociation, Academy of Arts and the Moscow Artists Society. He was named All-Russian in 1882 and 1896. His work was also shown at Universal and Internattional Exhibitions in Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin, Munich, Venice, Chicago and Rome.

PETER KOTOV

Peter Ivanovich Kotov was born in the settlement of Vladimirovka in 1889. He was a painter, author of protraits, of battle and genre scenes and of industrial landscapes. He studied at the Kazan Art School (1903-1909) under Nicolai Fechin. Kotov taught in the State Higher Art Studios in Astrakhan (1919-1922), then in the Kiev and Kharkov Institutes. Kotov was a member of the USSR Academy of Fine Arts. Peter Kotov died in 1953 at the age of 64.

Russian Lineage

Russian School of Painting

An Apprenticeship with Sergei Bongart