Nikolai Shin (born 1928 in Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai, Soviet Union, died August 18, 2006 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan) was an Uzbekistani painter of Korean descent, sometimes referred to by Korean newspapers as the Picasso of Asia.In 1949, Shin graduated from Tashkent's Benkov Art School, and began his career in painting, first receiving acclaim for his work in 1957, when he won the grand prize at the International Youth Festival in Moscow and the second prize in the Republican Festival of Young Artists of Uzbekistan. In 1960, he graduated from Atropsky Art College, also in Tashkent; after his graduation, he began work on his painting Requiem, which would take him until 1982 to complete. Requiem, painted on a canvas three meters tall and forty-four meters wide in primary colors, depicts people without eyes, noses, or mouths; Shin has stated that this was meant to represent the sense of enslavement and namelessness felt by the Koryo-saram as a result of the deportations. Following his completion of Requiem, Shin would go on to paint other works on the theme of the deportations and of Korean culture in Central Asia; he began to become well known in the West with his solo exhibition in Moscow in 1990, and another in Tashkent in 1991. Eventually, his art attracted the attention of the Central Asian-American Enterprise Fund, who offered him financial support, enabling him to hold further exhibitions. His work was recognized by the Korean government in 1997, when they awarded him with the Order of Culture Merit, he then donated Requiem to the Museum of Contemporary Art.Aside from his own artwork, Shin also took up a teaching post at his alma mater, the Benkov Art School, despite the low salary; he became a mentor to his student Elena Lee, another Uzbekistani painter of Korean descent, whose work was featured in 2004 at an exhibition in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He died August 18, 2006 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He is survived by a wife and three sons.

Excellent, The signature (letters) are painted on the lower left corner on front. On the verso, there are words written on the upper right, and numbers plus letters written on the stretcher bars.

40 x 41 x 2 in

10 lb