Yvan (Ivan) Chouklin

Sculptor, graphic artist, painter, teacher. Born in the family of an icon-painter called Andrian Shuklin in the village of Shuklinka in Kursk Province (1879). Studied under Sergei Volnukhin and Prince Paolo Troubetzkoy at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1895–1901) and under Vladimir Beklemishev at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1905–10). Awarded the title of class artist and a foreign fellowship in France (1910, delayed because of illness). Sculpted a statue of poet Ivan Nikitin (1907–11) and a bronze head of opera singer Joachim Tartakov (1910). Lived and worked in St Petersburg (1910), Voronezh (1911) and Kursk (1911–13). Travelled to Paris (1913). Moved to Spain following the outbreak of the First World War (1914). Returned to France (1920) and settled in Biarritz (1923). Awarded a Soviet passport (1958). Died in hospital in the town of Bayonne and buried at Arcangues Cimetière (1958). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1900s). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1900s–10s), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions in Moscow (1909) and St Petersburg (1910), group exhibition at the Musée Basque in Bayonne (1926), Société des Artistes Français (1929–31), St Petersburg: A Portrait of the City and its Citizens at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg (2003) and a one-man show at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz (1994).