Nikolai Alekseevich Trunov was born in the village of Nikolskoye, Voronezh region, in 1924. When he was sixteen years old, Trunov moved to Voronezh where he began to visit museums and exhibits and to read art journals. By the age of seventeen, he was a student at the Voronezh Art College where he studied under Kolosov and Filosofov. When World War II began and the college was temporarily closed, Trunov went to the Zemliansk Region where he continued to teach and paint.

At one point during the war, Trunov lived in a city occupied by the Germans. On a particularly beautiful day, he took some students outside into the countryside to paint, and the group was ambushed and interrogated by German patrol soldiers. The artists produced paints and field easels and were able to convince the Germans of their purpose and so were released. The occupying Germans turned out to be art lovers and allowed the artists to paint wherever and whenever they wished. The German officers even bought works from the artists.

Trunov now lives and paints in Voronezh. He has been a member of the Artists’ Union of Russia since 1967. He exhibits frequently in Russia and has several paintings in the Voronezh Kramskoi Museum of Art, as well as in private collections in Russia and abroad.

Heavily influenced by the Impressionists, he paints portraits and landscapes, the primary objective of which is the use of color. Since childhood, Trunov has been more interested in color than in classical technique.