A Nice Corner of Russia

Valentin Nikolaevich Sachkov was born in Mordovia in 1953, but spent his childhood and youth in Samara on the Volga River. He studied in the Penza Art School named after K.A. Savitsky. In 1977, he moved to Leningrad where a new stage of his creative and work life began. Valentin Sachkov entered Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I.E. Repin and studied at the Department of Painting in the workshop of Professor B.C. Ugarov.

Valentin Nikolaevich Sachkov is a painter, a member of the Union of Russian Artists, a full member of the Peter’s Academy of Sciences and Art, a member of the Association of Professional Artists of Israel. He participated in more than 200 collective exhibitions in Russia and abroad. He staged 56 one-man exhibitions in 18 countries of the world. Valentin Sachkov represented Russia at 24 one-man exhibitions in the Russian Centres of Science and Culture in Austria, India, Nepal, the Czech Republic, Malta, Finland, Egypt, Bulgaria, Poland, Israel, Denmark, and Serbia. In 2010, at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of Egypt, he represented Russia at the Third International Symposium of Artists in Luxor where his picture “Nilotic Boots” was bought by the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art (Cairo) and “Luxor. At the Berth” was presented to Farouk Hosni, Minister of Culture of Egypt, at his personal request. Valentin Sachkov has memorable awards, numerous diplomas and honorary certificates for his creative work and active participation in charitable projects.

He paints from nature a lot and is a constant participant of open air painting events in Russia (the project “Along the Sacred Places”) and other countries (France, Croatia, Egypt). The artist’s works were published in numerous catalogues of the exhibitions, albums and art magazines. They are kept in the museums of Russia, France, and Egypt, in picture galleries of many countries of the world and in private collections.

The landscape is the main subject of Valentin Sachkov’s creative work, but he also paints portraits, still lifes, genre and historical pictures.

The Russian nature in his pictures is close to the man. The divine and human sources seem to dissolve in it. The nature itself becomes a living embodiment of the church. Different states of nature are depicted in his paintings. The autumn world has new looks in them. It can be bright and colourful like in September, and it seemed that the fiery red merging of birches can light up roofs and yards of the neighbouring houses. Sometimes autumn is soggy, cold and cheerless, but having dried on a lovely day, it suddenly amazes with tender play of golden-pink tones and soft elegiac feeling of poetry of fading. Russian winter with its hard frosts and boundless snow is depicted in all its beauty. It is not just one of the four seasons for the artist, but it is a part of the great constant flow of life, therefore his winter landscapes are full of light, air and fresh smell of frost. His spring landscapes, on the contrary, radiate light and vital energy. The picture “February in Goritsy” can be referred to them to some extent as a kind of prelude to spring awakening of nature.

The subject of the Russian culture sources disturbing the society of our time was reflected in Valentin Sachkov’s pictures in an original way. He gets acquainted with the life of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, the Ferapontov monastery, the Goritsy Convent carefully and thoroughly and joins to the spirit of holy stones of the native land. He perceives walls of the ancient cathedrals as the spiritual foundation of Russia, as the core of people’s life. Architecture in the artist’s pictures is not a cold speculative symbol. He regards the walls of destroyed churches not as stones leveled with wind and rain, but as stones leveled with the hands and hearts of people who look for support and crouch to the living sources of the God’s power. The painting technique of the artist is natural and is harmoniously connected with the tasks of the depiction. Landscapes of autumn in the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery give rest to careful spectators and return them the feeling of a true scale of human life.

Time goes. And the artist – a person with fine and disturbed soul - is on the road again. This time he is going to the ancient Russian town of Kirillov. A meeting with nature, people, and restored churches of the ancient North is very precious. It will find an echo in the understanding heart of the painter and his pictures will be filled with warmth, new light and colour.