Ilya Yefimovich Repin

Born in Chuguev in Kharkov province (now Ukraine) in 1844. Died in Kuokkala, Finland (now Repino, Leningrad region) in 1930. Repin studied under I.N. Kramskoy in St. Petersburg, at the Graphic Art School of the Society for the Promotion of the Arts, and later at the Academy of Arts. In 1873–1876, as a pensioner of the Academy, he traveled across Italy and France. In 1878, he joined the Association of Peredvizhniks, and became one of the leaders of this movement. The art critic A. Efros wrote, “His name is the first that comes to mind of all the Russian artists.” Repin was first and foremost a master of portrait, genre and historical painting, but in many of his paintings, landscape is also present as a background. Open-air painting that Repin came to know in France had a strong influence on him. At the end of the 1890s, he created a number of open-air portraits. Repin was not only a great painter, but also a remarkable teacher. He taught at the Academy of Arts during 1894–1907, and at the studio school of M.K. Tenisheva. V.A. Serov and B.M. Kustodiev were among his pupils. Repin spent the last 30 years of his life at his country estate “Penaty” in Kuokkala on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Due to the change in Russian borders after the revolution, Repin found himself living in emigration. At the end of his life, the artist wrote his memoirs Far and Near.

Manuscript department of State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Works by this artist
	Beggar-Woman (1874)