Nicolas Globa

Nicolas Globa, director of the Institute in 1913

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Nicholas V. Globa is born in 1859 in the village Korneevka, in the region of Novorossiisk, in a Russian aristocratic family. He studies at the School for Drawing of Nicolai Murachko in Kiev and at the Russian Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg. In 1887 he receives his first diploma for his painting « Hieromonk performing the tonsure of Ivan the Terrible as schema-monk (Иеромонах совершает посвящение Ивана Грозного в схиму).

After he has finished his studies he continues to paint historical scenes in the very traditional realistic style, and joins the movement of the « Itinerants » (Передвижники).

Besides his artistic work, Nicholas V. Globa devotes himself with passion to pedagogy and the organization of artistic and industrial teaching (художественно-промышленное образование). In 1896 he becomes director of the Stroganov School of Art and Industry in Moscow. During his tenure of office which finishes in 1917 he reforms succesfully the education at the school, modifying completely the program and renewing the faculty, for which he received the title « Academician ».

In 1925 Nicholas Vasilievitch is part of a delegation to participate in the International Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris and decides to stay in France. With the help of Prince Felix Yussupov he organizes a Russian Institute of Art and Industry in Paris, of which he becomes the director, and it is opened in 1926. To the faculty belong Ivan Bilibin, Dimitri Stelletsky, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Nicholas Milioti, Lidia Rodzianko and Vassily Shukhaev. The Institute provides workshops on artistic dressmaking, printed tissue, enamel encrustation and porcelain painting. In 1928 Nicholas V. Globa participates with other teachers of the Institute in an exposition organized by the town hall of the XVIIth district of Paris and receives a golden badge. However, in 1930 the Institute has to close because of lack of funding. Nicholas V. Globa becomes member of the Association « The Icon ».

Already during the years 1920, Nicholas V. Globa works with several students of the Institute on the decoration of the interior of the church of Our Lady of the Sign in Paris. He produces some icons and repousse metal work which cover the iconostasis and icons of the churches of Our Lady of the Sign in Paris and the church of Saint Nicholas in Boulogne-Billancourt. Being one of the founders of the church of Saint Seraphim of Sarov in Paris, he regularly contributes to its decoration in the beginning of the years 1930. The construction of the iconostasis of the Maison Russe in Sainte-Geneviève-des Bois has been the last important work which he has done for the Church. In 1935 he returns to profane art and makes paintings of portraits, still life and landscapes.

Nicholas Vassilievitch Globa dies on September 1928, 1941, in Paris. He is buried at the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des Bois.