Man in top hat

Solomon Borisovich Nikritin was born in 1898 in the city of Chernigov, Ukraine.
In 1903 the family moved to Kiev so that his father could practice dentistry. At the age of about 10 he began to paint and then started to study at the Kiev School of Fine Arts. From 1918 to 1920 he worked in Alexandra Exter's studio in Kiev and was a member of the 'Artistic League'. His acquaintance with Maxim Gorky was decisive as for many years he was his spiritual teacher and educator. In 1914 Maxim Gorky and Maria Andreyeva sent him at their own expense to study in Moscow and he apprenticed in the studio of Mikhail Leblanc and Leonid Pastearnak and then in Petrograd in the studio of Aleksandr Yakovlev. In 1920-1922 he studied at the Higher Technical Artistic Workshops in Moscow (VHUTEMAS) and in 1921 he founded the group 'Electroorganism' with Aleksandr Labas, Sergei Luchishkin, Clement Redko, Mikhail Plaxin and Aleksandr Tishler. The following year he organises exhibitions at the Museum of Painting Education in Moscow and participates in the "First Exhibition of Russian Art" at Galerie Van Diemen in Berlin. Alongside painting, he is involved in theatre and founds the "Theatre of the Projectionists" group. In 1923, the group of projectionists "Method" is founded, in which all members of the "Electroorganism" group participate.He is engaged in scenery, costumes and as a director he emphasizes the experimental study of movement and sound and studies the relationship between painting and cinema. In 1924, the "Method" group participates in the First Interactive Exhibition of the groups of the Active Revolutionary Art Groups in Moscow. In the early 1930s he presents the theoretical documentation of the principles of the art of "Polyrealism", the main characteristic of which Nikritin considers the composition of multiple snapshots, which he discovers in different periods and in different painters. In the 1940s-1950s he was engaged in artistic interior design and exhibition design.
He died in 1965 in Moscow.