Mikhail Mikeshin

Sculptor, graphic artist, illustrator, painter. Studied battle painting under Bogdan Gottfried Willewalde at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1852–58). Awarded a minor silver medal (1852), major silver medal (1854), minor gold medal (1855), major gold medal and the title of first-class artist (1858). Abandoned painting and a six-year foreign fellowship to take part in the competition to design the Millennium of Russia monument in Novgorod (1859–62). Designed statues of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg (1863–73) and Ekaterinodar (1897), Admiral Alexis Greig in Nikolaev (1873), Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Kiev (1888) and Yermak in Novocherkassk (1904). Honorary member of the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes in Lisbon (1864), member of the Serbian Learned Society (1868), academician of sculpture (1869). Sculpted decorations for the Russian navy, including the imperial yacht Derzhava (1867–70). Edited and published the Bees magazine (1876–78), illustrated the works of Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Taras Shevchenko (1896). Died in St Petersburg and buried at the St Alexander Nevsky Monastery (1896). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1868). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1868, 1869) and the Pan-Russian Exhibition of Art and Industry in Moscow (1882).