Popov Nikolai Nikolaevich (1888-1953) - Russian and Soviet artist-painter, portraitist and graphic artist. Enters the Penza Art School named after N.D. Seliverstov, where he studies with Ivan Goryushkin-Sorokopudov himself. His classmate was one of the founders of Russian futurism, Vladimir Burliuk, brother of David Burliuk. While still a student, N. Popov became one of the founders of the «Volga Union», which united the «left» artistic youth.
From 1914 to 1916, the «Volga Union╗ organized exhibitions in Penza, Samara, Kazan, Orenburg. After graduating from college in 1918, N. Popov continued his studies at the Petrograd free art workshops in the class of Alexander Savinov, a participant in exhibitions of the «World of Art» association. Soon he returned to Penza, where he painted a large panel «The Conspiracy of Brutus» (not preserved), worked as a decorator at the V.G. Belinsky, from October 1920 named after A.V. Lunacharsky. In 1918 he joined the Professional Union of Art Workers. In 1919 Nikolai Popov returned to his homeland in Samara, was fond of avant-garde art, and worked in the field of mass propaganda art. Together with the artists Samuil Adlivankin who came from Moscow and the future apologist of socialist realism Georgy Ryazhsky, he became one of the organizers of the Samara branch of the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops. In August 1919 Popov under the act The People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR received 35 works of avant-garde art, including works by Olga Rozanova, Michel Le-Danteu, M. Menkov, V. Strzheminsky, A. Vesnin, S. Dymshits-Tolstoy, E. Bebutova and other artists who are currently time are the pride of the Samara Art Museum. The Samara project of the Department of Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops was completed in December 1921, when, under the onslaught of hunger and typhus, Popov's comrades were forced to leave for Moscow. Here they founded the «New Society of Painters» (abbreviated as «KNIFE»). Popov takes an active part in exhibitions of this society.
In the 1930s makes creative trips to Georgia, Dagestan, Ufa, Orenburg and the Urals. From 1928 to 1946 - Member of the City Committee of Artists, Painters and Sculptors in the Professional Union of Art Workers. From 1946 to 1953 Nikolai Popov worked at the Moscow Painters' Works. It was at this time that he turned to poster art, creating advertising posters for the USSR Ministry of Food Industry and the Soviet food giants of the Main Directorate of the Refrigeration Industry, the Main Directorate of the Canning Industry, the City Department of Trade in Industrial Goods, and others. Popov were exhibited at exhibitions: Penza, Samara, Moscow regional, the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, «Genesis», «KNIFE», at the exhibition of Soviet art in Japan (1927) and others. Major works: «Political Prisoner» (1924-1926), «Portrait of the commander of the Volga Military District G.D. Bazilevich» (1927), «Portrait of the commander of the Moscow proletarian division G.D. Mikhailovsky», «Portrait of Comrade Tereshkin, a hero of the battles at Lake Khasan», «Field Marshal Z. Chernyshov in Berlin in 17600». Popov's works are in the Central Museum of the USSR Revolution, the Central Museum of the USSR Armed Forces, the Museum of the Border Troops, the Moscow Regional Museum of Local Lore, the Military Medical Museum of Leningrad, the Kuibyshev Art Museum. NN Popov's painting «Portrait of Leonid Nikolayevich Popov» (a military doctor, the artist's brother), was donated to the Military Medical Museum of the USSR Ministry of Defense in Leningrad. There are two works in the Solikamsk Museum of Local Lore. The artist's works of recent years are kept mainly in the collections of Moscow museums.