Painter, graphic artist, theater. artist. From 1908 he studied at the Drawing school, 1913-15, and in 1921-22 at the Academy of arts in St. Petersburg - Petrograd, a student of D. Kardovsky, K. Petrov-Vodkin. From 1915 to participate in exhibitions. Lived in Petrograd - Leningrad. In 1928 a member of the "Community of artists". Paintings "Woman in red" (1925), "Old Novgorod" (1927), "Plant Sevkabel" (1934), "End of harvest" (1935), "may day demonstration" (1938), "grape Harvest" (1943), etc.
born in the Novgorod region in 1890 and the beginning of XX century came to St. Petersburg, where he studied at the Drawing school society for the encouragement of arts, then at the Academy of arts and finally, in the great workshop of K. S. Petrov-Vodkin. After graduation in 1922, Jonas is actively involved in the contemporary artistic process of Petrograd-Leningrad. He was a member of the Association "Community of artists" "Society of painters", it was close to the "Circle of artists", with its concept of "painterly realism".
His major works of Jonas creates in the 1920s Plastically monumental, figuratively meaningful, filled with symbols of our time "Woman in red", "Portrait of E. N. Of Jonah (the artist's wife, sisters A. N. Samokhvalova)", "woman in a headscarf" became an expression of the spirit of the era, the style of the new art. The obvious influence of Petrov-Vodkin, connected them with a software author's references to the most important for the artist the phenomena of the world of art: plastic, Ancient Egypt, Russian icon and Suprematism.
Endowed with great coloristic talent, he develops the symbols and the emotional structure of a red color, of course, dominant in all of his work. That is a temperamental color scheme is the main component of the works of the 1930s ("the shipyard", "Sevkabel", "pig with piglets").
The second world finds the artist in Leningrad. After a terrible winter of the siege in the spring of 1942, he and his family were evacuated to Kyrgyzstan. There, in a village on the outskirts of Frunze, began a new period of creative activity grids. A new full of sun, bright colors, green and flowering world contrasted sharply with the miserable, half-starved life, with personal tragedy (the war master lost his eldest son). His works of these years, pictorial and graphic, become a true document of the era, filled with amazing sincerity.
Experiences of working in the open air and spatial constructions of the Kyrgyz landscapes affected by painting grids of the postwar period. He returns to the series "Leningrad and its suburbs", complementing them with works in which there is a new, more monumental format, the color becomes more dense. One of the best works of this period is the series of landscapes "Klymivschyna" (named after the village in the Novgorod region). Restrained, stressed love, they are filled with the special lyricism, an understanding of true, inner values of life.
Created by Nikolai Ionin in recent years, a series of self-portraits is striking result of absolute sincerity, spiritual strength and courageous awareness of its high destiny of the artist, who won in a difficult battle, the dispute over time.
(Source: JSC "Russian Antiques")
