Nikolai Tarkhov came to Paris in 1898 at a young age, and became intoxicated and fascinated with the impressionist atmosphere of the French capital - it literally made him lose sleep. On his return to Russia he had planned to enter the Academy of Arts, but suddenly took off again, forgetting everything, and went back to Paris again, this time for good. A former employee of the Brest railways and a student of Konstantin Korovin, he exhibited at the legendary Salon des Independents. In Paris Tarkhov worked a great deal in the open air and paid much attention to city and rural landscapes. He married a French girl, had three children and purchased a house in the Orsay district. And yet, Tarkhov’s talent did not bring him security, and in the last years of his life the painter was forgotten, poor and sick. How could that have happened? Some people put the blame on his difficult character – Nikolai Tarkhov distrusted art dealers, and even broke off relations with the most authoritative of them all, Ambroise Vollard, the one who brought world fame to Paul Cezanne, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Pablo Picasso. Nikolai Tarkhov gradually lost all his clients, and in addition, impressionism began to fall out of fashion, with only the painter retaining his faith in the ideals of that style.