Nikolay Kharitonov was an artist and stage designer. He was born in Yaroslavl Province into a peasant family. After graduating from school, he moved to St Petersburg, where he worked in a stationery shop and in a sign-making workshop. Around 1895, he entered the Valaam Monastery as a novice. There, for two years, he studied icon painting. After returning to St Petersburg, he continued his training at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and in the studio of L. E. Dmitriev-Kavkazsky. From 1901 to 1909, he attended classes at the Higher School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the Imperial Academy of Arts, where Ilya Repin was among his teachers. In 1909, Nikolay Kharitonov was awarded the official title of Artist for his painting "Icarus". After graduating from the Academy, he worked extensively. His artistic range was remarkably broad: he painted portraits, genre scenes, and landscapes of the Russian North and the Caucasus. In 1912, he travelled across Europe, worked for an extended period in Paris, and studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Nikolay Kharitonov received several awards, including prizes from the Arkhip Kuindzhi competition for his paintings "The Nanny" and "Lady in Black". He was a member of the Yaroslavl Art Society and the Arkhip Kuindzhi Society. During World War I, he produced portrait sketches of generals of the Russian army. In 1919, he emigrated to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. From 1923, he lived in New York, where he became a naturalized American citizen and worked as a portraitist. The Bakhrushin Theatre Museum holds portraits of Fyodor Chaliapin and Sergei Zimin painted by Kharitonov, as well as photographs showing the artist at work.