Karlis Jekabs Vilhelms Huns

Latvian painter, draughtsman, lithographer, teacher. Born in Sissegal in Livonia (now Madliena in Latvia) to teacher, organist and parish clerk Karlis Fridrihs Huns and his wife Luize Doroteja Fogels (1830). Attended the Domskola in Riga and moved to St Petersburg (1850), where he worked as a draughtsman for a local lithographer (1850–52). Studied under Pyotr Basin at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1852–61). Awarded minor silver medals (1855, 1857, 1858), major silver medals (1855, 1858), a minor gold medal (1860) and a major gold medal and the title of first-class artist (1861). Helped Vasily Vereschagin and Mitrophan Vereschagin (1842–1892) to decorate the Cathedral of the Intercession in Yelabuga in Vyatka Province (1862) and contributed illustrations of Russian folk life to Gustave-Théodore de Pauly’s Description ethnographique des Peuples de la Russie (1862). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Paris and Veules (1863–71), travelling via Leipzig, Dresden, Prague and Munich (1863). Academician (1868), second-class professor of history painting (1871). Taught at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1871–74). Travelled down the River Volga (1872). Member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1872–77). Painted an allegorical fresco for the ceiling of a staircase in the Anichkov Palace (1873–74). Married Vera Monighetti (1874), daughter of Swiss architect Ippolito Monighetti (1819–1878). Contracted tuberculosis and moved abroad (1874), living in France, Austria, Italy and Switzerland (1874–77). Died in Davos in Switzerland (1877). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1859). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1859–73), Paris Salon (1866–77), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1871–77), Second Annual International Exhibition in London (1872), Weltausstellung in Vienna (1873), Exposition Universelle in Paris (1878) and posthumous one-man shows in St Petersburg (1878), Riga (1950, 1977, 1980) and Madliena (1980).