Sergei Vasilyevich Ivanov

Painter, graphic artist, illustrator, teacher. Born in the small town of Ruza to the west of Moscow in the family of an excise officer (1864). Studied under Pyotr Sinebatov (mid-1870s), under Vasily Perov, Illarion Pryanishnikov and Yevgraf Sorokin at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1878–82, 1884–85) and at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1882–84). Awarded the title of class artist (1885). Travelled widely across central Russia (1880s–90s), visited the Caucasus (1888), Crimea and Dagestan (1896), Vyatka Province (1898), Kalmykia and Kirghizia (1899), Vienna, Venice, Milan, Genoa and Marseille (1894) and Sweden and Finland (1901). Painted works on the theme of peasant settlers (1885–90), political prisoners (1890–92), medieval history (1895–1903) and revolutionary events (1903–09). Illustrated the works of Mikhail Lermontov (1890–91), Alexander Pushkin (1898–99) and Nikolai Gogol (1903–04), contributed to Joseph Knebel’s Pictures of Russian History (1907–10). Member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1899–1903), founding member of the Union of Russian Artists (1903). Academician (1905). Taught at the Stroganov School of Art and Industry (1899–1906) and the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1900–10). Died at the age of forty-six of a heart attack at his dacha in the village of Svistukha to the north of Moscow (1910). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1886, 1887, 1889, 1894), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1887–1901), 36 Artists (1901, 1902), World of Art (1903), Union of Russian Artists (1903–10) and posthumous retrospectives in Moscow (1911, 1944, 1951), St Petersburg/Leningrad (1911, 1964) and Kiev (1965).