Hlushchenko was born in Novomoskovske,
Yekaterinoslav Governorate,
Russian Empire, a town originally established by
Zaporozhian Cossacks and currently known under its original name of
Samar. At the early age Mykola moved to
Yuzivka where he attended classes in drawing and became fond of artwork by
Illia Ripyn and
Serhiy Vasylkivsky. After being forcibly mobilized into the
Volunteer Army, Hlushchenko ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland, from which he escaped. A graduate of the Academy of Art in Berlin (1924), from 1925 he worked in
Paris where he immediately attracted the attention of French critics. From the
New Objectivity style of his Berlin period he changed to
post-Impressionism. Besides numerous French, Italian, Dutch, and (later) Ukrainian landscapes, he also painted flowers, still life, nudes, and portraits (such as of
Oleksandr Dovzhenko and
Volodymyr Vynnychenko, as well as portraits commissioned by the Soviet government of the French writers
Henri Barbusse,
Romain Rolland, and
Victor Margueritte and the painter
Paul Signac). At the beginning of the 1930s, Hlushchenko belonged to the
Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists and helped organize its large exhibition of Ukrainian, French, and Italian paintings at the National Museum in
Lviv. Through his relationship with businessman André Mirabeau, he allegedly obtained over two hundred drawings of military equipment which he supplied to Soviet intelligence. In 1936 Hlushchenko moved to the
USSR. Working for the Soviet Union secret service, he was among those who warned the Soviet government about the German plan to attack ahead of time. In 1944, he moved to
Kyiv, and created a series of paintings of the post-war city, as well as many landscapes he had seen while traveling to
France,
Belgium,
Switzerland,
Italy and other countries. In the 1960s, having come into close contact with new artistic trends on his trips abroad, he revitalized his paintings with expressive colors, and assumed a leading position among Ukrainian colorist painters. Hlushchenko's work was exhibited in Berlin (1924), Paris (five exhibits 1925–34), Milan (1927), Budapest (1930, 1932), Stockholm (1931), Rome (1933), Lviv (1934, 1935), Moscow (1943, 1959), Belgrade (1966, 1968), London (1966), Toronto (1967–9), and Kyiv (over 10 exhibits). He died in Kyiv,
Ukrainian SSR. He was buried at
Baikove Cemetery. == Awards ==