Andrei Ryabushkin

Painter, graphic artist, illustrator, teacher. Born to a peasant icon-painter in Tambov Province (1861). Studied under Vasily Perov, Yevgraf Sorokin and Illarion Pryanishnikov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1875–82) and under Pavel Chistyakov at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1882–90). Travelled widely across historical Russian towns, studying national history and folklore (from 1890). Painted images of everyday life in seventeenth-century Muscovy (1890s) and contemporary peasant life (1900s). Taught at the School of Drawing of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (1893–95). Member of the Society of Artists of History Painting (1895), World of Art (1900) and the Union of Russian Artists (1903). Designed book covers and vignettes (from 1880), illustrated traditional heroic poems (1888–93) and the works of Alexei Tolstoy (1885) and Ilya Tyumenev (1892). Decorated the Chapel of the Nativity of the Virgin at St Petersburg Conservatoire (1895), designed mosaics for the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg (1896–1900) and frescoes for the St Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (1895) and St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Warsaw (1903). Lived at the estates of Privolye and Didvino in Novgorod Province (from 1891). Built a studio at Didvino (1901), where he died of tuberculosis (1904). Buried in the village of Dobroe (1904) and reburied at Lyuban Cemetery (1949). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1879). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (from 1888), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1890, 1892, 1894), Society of Artists of History Painting (1895, 1896), Exhibition of Russian and Finnish Painters (1898), World of Art (1900–03), 36 Artists (1901, 1902), Union of Russian Artists (1903, 1904) and Exposition Universelle in Paris (1900, diplôme d’honneur).