А. Ѳ. КОНИ.
Ѳедоръ Петровичъ
ГААЗЪ.
БІОГРАФИЧЕСКІЙ ОЧЕРКЪ.
Съ портретомъ, 4 факсимиле Ѳ. П. Гааза, видомъ его могилы и
72 рисунками
Е. П. Самокишъ-Судковской
ТРЕТЬЕ ИЗДАНІЕ, ДОПОЛНЕННОЕ.
С.-Петербургъ
Изданіе А. Ф. Маркса
Изданный Адольфом Фёдоровичем Марксом очерк Анатолия Фёдоровича Кони с иллюстрациями Елены Петровны Самокиш-Судковской (урождённая Бенард; Санкт-Петербург, 1862 - Ленинград, 1924), описывающий подвижническую деятельность филантропа Фёдора Петровича Гааза (нем. Friedrich Joseph Laurentius Haass; 1780-1853), примечателен двуединством слова литератора и образа художника в картине, показывающей великодушие и нравственность главного героя на фоне ограниченного и жестокого окружения.
The essay by Anatoly Koni, published by Adolf Marx with illustrations by Yelena Samokish-Sudkovskaya, describing the ascetic activities of the philanthropist Fedor (Friedrich) Haass, is notable for the unity of the writer's word and the artist's image in the picture, revealing the soul of the main character against a background opposite to his magnanimous view of human nature.
Yelena Petrovna Samokish-Sudkovskaya [Elena Petrovna Samokysh-Sudkovskaya] (née Benard; 1862-1924) was a painter, portraitist, poster artist, and illustrator; she graduated from the Pavlovsk Women's Institute (a closed educational institution, mainly for daughters of military officials) and studied at the Helsingforsk Drawing School (Drawing School of the Art Society of Finland); she also took private lessons in painting from Professor Vasily Petrovich Vereshchagin. After the death of her husband, the marine painter Academician Rufin Gavrilovich Sudkovsky (1850-1885), she continued her artistic education at the Académie Julian in Paris. On her return to Russia in 1889, she married the artist Nikolai Semyonovich Samokish, whom she met in France. In Russia, Samokish-Sudkovskaya painted portraits and genre paintings; she was a member of the First Ladies' Art Circle (1882-1918). Yelena Petrovna Samokish-Sudkovskaya owns the pictorial panel “Pavlovsky Station of the Tsarskoselskaya Railroad. Twenty-fifth anniversary. October 30, 1862,” in Pavlovsk. The artist worked a lot in graphics and drew posters and theater programs.
In early 1917, Yelena Petrovna Samokish-Sudkovskaya, with her daughter, grandchildren, and mother, was sent by her husband to the Crimea with the expectation that soon after the end of the academic year at the Higher Art School at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Nikolai Semyonovich Samokish would join them. Nikolai Semenovich found himself in Evpatoria only in 1918, while his family was in Alupka. At this time, Samokish began a relationship with a young woman. “What am I, a widow? A divorcee? “Where is the ‘truth’?” addressed Yelena Petrovna to her husband. But the academician could not make up his mind. Having lost support, in despair from the uncertainty of her situation, hunger, and poverty, in 1923, Yelena Petrovna Samokish-Sudkovskaya went to Moscow to issue a passport to settle matters related to the artists' workshop located near Vyborg. On December 6, 1923, she left for Vyborg; having disposed of her property, she returned to Petrograd. “The money has been received (1,000 dollars and 120 small dollars). I am not spending them,” Elena Petrovna reported to her husband on May 9, 1924. In her last letter to him from May 15, 1924, she wrote that she “has been ... in Petrograd for a month,” visited the Academy, but saw that everything was “in a terrible state,”” and the workshop of Professor Samokish was “boarded up”; “So far the devastation in art is catastrophic. There is hope to get you a professorship here, but the salary is meager and there is no apartment.” Yelena Petrovna waited for her husband and hoped that together they would be able to solve all the problems. Alas, all the troubles of an unhappy woman turned out to be in vain.
In the same year, Margarita Rufinovna Lagrange (Sudkovskaya), in a letter to Nikolai Semyonovich Samokish, mentioned her mother's death as a fact known to both of them. The circumstances of death and the place of burial of Yelena Petrovna Samokish-Sudkovskaya are not mentioned in the correspondence. But the Izvestia newspaper, No. 166, dated July 23, 1924, published the following obituary on page 5: "E. P. SAMOKISH-SUDKOVSKAYA. The famous artist and illustrator E. P. Samokish-Sudkovskaya has died in Leningrad. The deceased was 67 years old. Her works were very successful in her time. She illustrated a number of art publications by Golike and Vilborg, Marx, etc., and many children's books. Of her works, the most famous are the illustrations for "Eugene Onegin", "Dead Souls," "Haass," "Dr. Haass," and "The Little Humpbacked Horse" by Yershov. For over 20 years, E. P. Samokish-Sudkovskaya worked as a permanent illustrator for the magazine "Niva." Her drawings were distinguished by their elegance and taste."
The art of Yelena Petrovna Samokish-Sudkovskaya closely intertwined tradition and modernity: Art Nouveau and romanticism characteristic of Russian creativity. In the poster, the event emphasis was emphasized by energetic contrasting drawings in the foreground and a muted background embedded in the plot.