Vasily Pukirev

Painter, draughtsman, lithographer, illustrator, teacher. Born in the family of a peasant called Vladimir Pukirev in the village of Luzhniki in Tula Province (1832). Studied under an icon-painter in Mohilev and under Apollon Mokritsky, Jacob Vasilyev and Sergei Zaryanko at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1847–58). Awarded the titles of teacher of drawing (1850) and non-class artist (1855). Academician of history and portrait painting (1860), professor of folk scenes (1863). Lived in Moscow, where he painted icons for local churches. Contributed to the Album of Views and Scenes from Russian Life (1867). Illustrated Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls (1860s) and Ivan Turgenev’s Notes of a Hunter (1880). Taught drawing at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1861–73). Forced to abandon teaching and painting due to illness and stress and died in poverty in Moscow (1890). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1850). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (from 1850), Imperial Academy of Arts (1860–71), Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1868–85), Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1870), Pan-Russian Exhibition of Industry and Art in Moscow (1882) and the Exposition Universelle in Paris (1867).