Nadya (Nadezhda Nikolayevna) Rusheva (russian: Надя (Надежда Николаевна) Рушева) (31 January 1952 - 6 March 1969) was a Russian artist. Having started drawing from the age of five, she had created over 10,000 artworks before dying at the age of 17.

Biography

Career

Like most children, Nadya Rusheva began drawing around the age of 5. It wasn't until she was 7, though, that her family began to take her artistic endeavors seriously. She began to paint every day, and once drew 36 illustrations of “

The Tale of Tsar Saltan The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan ( rus, «Сказка о царе Салтане, о сыне его славном и могучем богаты� ...

” in a single evening while her father read the story to her. Rusheva reportedly made no preparatory drawings or sketches, nor even erased much. According to the artist herself, “I live the life of those I draw. I first see them... they appear on paper as watermarks, and I need to do something to lead around them...” She brought her characters to life in clean, flowing lines. Rusheva is most famous for her illustrations of Mikhail Bulgakov’s

Master and Margarita ''The Master and Margarita'' (russian: Мастер и Маргарита) is a novel by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin's regime. A censored version, with several chapters cut by ...

. Originally banned in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, the book contains two parallel stories: the story of Master and Margarita and the story of Jesus Christ’s final days as written by the Master. Rusheva’s illustrations of Margarita are said to bear a strong resemblance to Bulgakov’s wife, whom Rusheva never met. Yelena Bulgakova later said, “I wish I knew this amazing and subtle creature, Nadya Rusheva.

Death and legacy

She died from a brain haemorrhage resulting from a congenital defect of the cerebral arteries on 6 March 1969. Nadya was buried at Pokrov Cemetery in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

. Asteroid 3516 Rusheva is named after Nadya.

References

*(in Russian) "Grafika Nadi Rushevoj." ("Graphic art of Nadya Rusheva") Composed by: N.K. Rushev. Text author: G.V. Panfilov. Moscow, Izobrazitelnoe iskusstvo Publishers, 1976. * (in Russian) E.I. Pashnyov "Devochka i olen", Moscow, Terra, 2001, 276 pages. Illustrated by Nadya Rusheva.

External links

World of Nadya Rusheva

Rusheva.org.ua
1952 births 1969 deaths Modern painters 20th-century Russian painters Russian children Child artists 20th-century Russian women artists Russian women painters {{Russia-painter-stub