Nikolai Becker worked tirelessly in Turkey for three years, and as a member of the Union of Russian Painters in Constantinople, he created at least 168 portraits of men and women (among them admirals and their families, commanders-in-chief, diplomats including Foster Waterman Stearns). According to one newspaper, it was "an entire gallery of the gods and goddesses of the occupying Olympus"; according to another newspaper, these works were so professional that they "did not need any recommendation". The artist achieved fame after two solo exhibitions at the Pera Palace Hotel in 1921 and 1922: “N.N. Becker is not only an artist of great technique, a serious school, a scientific approach, he is also a poet of colours, an inspirational and rich colourist. He has his own way, which he followed both there in his native and distant Petersburg, and here, where for the second year he exhibits with unusual success for Russians abroad” (Anonymous, “Vystavka N.N. Beckera v Pera Palace”, 1922). Here is what is known about his first exhibition in Istanbul: “…everything was sold out and portrait orders came in one after another. Unfortunately, some of his artworks have already been taken to Europe, but those that remain, such as the portraits of Madame Dumesnil, Shainovich, Svanishvili, Dzhakeli, Gerson, Monsignore Dolci and others, truly honour their author” (Anonymous, “Vystavka hudojnika N.N. Beckera”, 1922). When journalists spoke about a serious school and a scientific approach, they meant the education that Becker had received at the Imperial Academy of Arts of the Russian Empire even before the First World War (his teachers were O. Kovalevsky, F. Roubaud and J. Tsionglinski). In Russia, he painted hundreds of portraits: members of the imperial family, the highest aristocracy and the financial world. Family portraits of the Yusupovs and Stroganovs were very famous and admired. Most critics believed the painter’s traditionalism was evident. Some of them still found "something new" in his works but "not under the sign of modernism [...] rather in the sense of grace and taste" (Anonymous, “Hudojnik N.N. Becker”, 1929). They also noted that the appearance of this “European with Versailles manners and a purely Russian soul” was in astonishing harmony with his work (Anonymous, “Hudojnik N.N. Becker”, 1929). They predicted a bright future for him in Europe, believing that he was "fresh and fragrant for the most refined European eye", and as it turned out later, they were right.
After Istanbul, Becker continued his career as a portrait painter in Paris, and this was an equally prosperous period in his life. There he painted both diplomats and women. While he was living in France, he worked in London for a long time (the result were portraits of the English nobility) and Madrid (before he arrived, he already had orders from high-ranking Spaniards). In the late 1950s Becker moved to New York and, despite his advanced age, continued his productive work; he decided to return to France after the death of his third wife (Anonymous, “Nikolai Becker: Portraitist of Russian Royalty”). In Nice he painted numerous landscapes.