Nikolay Nikolaevich Ghe was born on February 15, 1831 in Voronezh, during the year of the cholera epidemic from which his mother died just three months after his birth. The artist spent his childhood in Ukraine on the estate of his father, the grandson of a French emigre (Gay) who came from France to Russia at the end of the 18th-century and made his home in Moscow. Later Ghe thought that his forebears had made a mistake in fleeing France and "a good cause". Memories of childhood and the hard life of serfs sunk deeply into the artist's mind. All his life Ghe would remember the brutality of the manager, a soldier beaten to death, and the pain and suffering of the people. According to the artist, his nanny was his teacher of law and life and endowed him with sensitivity to the sorrow of others.

In high school Ghe loved to draw and do watercolors with his drawing teacher and even then it was predicted that he would become an artist. But Ghe did not believe in his powers and at his fathers recommendation entered the mathematics department of Kiev University.

In 1848 he transferred to Petersburg University, perhaps to be closer to his older brother or to be closer to the high arts, to the Academy of Arts, and see the works of Karl Brullov, or for some other reason. In Petersburg over the course of two years (1848-1849) Ghe combined studies at the university with visits to the Hermitage and long hours of drawing in the classrooms at the Academy.

The fact that Ghe joined the Academy of Arts in 1850 did not surprise anyone. At the Academy Ghe closely studied the works of Karl Brullov and tried to create something similar.

For his painting Saul and the Witch of Endor (1856), the result of complete mastery of academic painting, Ghe was awarded a Major gold medal, which gave him a scholarship to travel abroad at the expense of the Academy. Ghe literally fled imperial Russia. After visiting Germany, Switzerland, and France, he settled for several years in Italy (1857-1863).

Upon his return to Russia Ghe exhibited the painting The Last Supper, which shocked Russia just as the Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Brullov at once shocked the nation.

After a short stay in Russia Ghe went abroad again and lived six years in Florence.

Ghe tried different genres, including portrait, historical scenes and religious paintings but none of these satisfied him. Lack of creative satisfaction and financial woes cause the artist to leave the capital. In 1876 Ghe went to live on a farm in Chernigov guberniya near Pliski station. It was there he died on July 1,1894.

Thus was Nikolay Ghe, a profound philosopher and great, unforgettable master who never ceased learning and examining the world closely to the very end.

His paintings remarkably reflected the era in which he lived, the latter half of the 19th century, a time in which people were prepared to abandon morals or, on the contrary, to dedicate their lives to proving them.

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