Zinaida Serebryakova

Painter, graphic artist, interior decorator. Granddaughter of Nicolas Benois, daughter of Eugène Lanceray and Catherine Benois (1850–1933), niece of Albert Benois, Léon Benois and Alexander Benois, sister of Yevgeny Lanceray. Born at the family estate of Neskuchnoe in Kursk Province (1884), moved with her family to St Petersburg after the death of her father (1886) and lived in the house of her maternal grandparents at 15 Nikolskaya (now Glinka) Street. Graduated from the Kolomna Grammar School for Girls (1901) and studied for one month at the Princess Maria Tenisheva School of Art (1901). Travelled to Italy with her mother and sisters (1902), visiting Capri (1902–03), Rome (1903) and Vienna (1903). Returned to St Petersburg (1903), where she worked in Osip Braz’s studio (1903–05). Married her cousin Boris Serebryakov (1905). Continued her education in Paris (1905–06), where she studied at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière and copied paintings in the Louvre. Returned to Russia (1906) and gave birth to sons Yevgeny (1906) and Alexander (1907) and daughters Tatyana (1912) and Ekaterina (1913). Lived at Neskuchnoe, sketching peasants and painting landscapes (1906–11). Won public recognition after showing the self-portrait Woman at a Mirror (1909–10) at the seventh exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists in St Petersburg (1910). Member of the World of Art (1910) and the Union of Russian Artists in France (1933). Painted portraits (1910–12), nude drawings of peasant girls (1912) and landscapes of Tsarskoe Selo and Simeiz in the Crimea (1912–13). Visited Switzerland, Milan, Venice and Florence (1914). Returned to Neskuchnoe following the outbreak of the First World War (1914), where she painted studies of peasant women and Austrian prisoners-of-war (1914–17). Invited to decorate the interior of the Kazan Railway Station in Moscow (1915–16). One of the first women (along with Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya and Alexandra Schneider) to be considered for election to the Imperial Academy of Arts, only for the ballot to be cancelled by the revolution (1917). Lost many finished and unfinished works when revolutionary peasants set fire to Neskuchnoe (1917). Moved briefly to the small town of Zmiiv (1917) and lived in rented accommodation in Kharkiv (1918). Left to support her widowed mother and four children after the death of her husband from typhoid (1919). Found work drawing exhibits at the Kharkiv Archaeological Museum (1919–20). Moved with her family to Petrograd (1920), living in the Benois apartment at 15 Nikolskaya Street (1921–24). Refused the offer of a professorship at the Academy of Arts (renamed the State Free Art Studios) and attempted to earn a living by working on private commissions (1920). Painted self-portraits, portraits of her children, still-lifes, landscapes of Gatchina and the interiors of the Catherine Palace in Detskoe Selo (1921–24). Visited the Petrograd Ballet School and rehearsals at the Mariinsky Theatre, drawing the interiors of dressing rooms, ballet lessons and portraits of ballerinas (1921–24). Decided to move to Paris for financial reasons (1924), where she was joined by her son Alexander (1925) and daughter Ekaterina (1928), who both became artists. Painted portraits for customers in France, Great Britain, Switzerland and Portugal and spent her summers sketching landscapes in Brittany, Côte d’Azur, Italy, Switzerland and Corsica (1920s–30s). Commissioned to paint a series of works for Belgian manufacturer Baron Jean Henri de Brouwer, including portraits of his wife and daughter (1928) and two hundred portraits of local types and landscapes in Morocco (1928–29, 1932). Invited to decorate his new residence, Manoir du Relais, in Pommeroeul in southern Belgium (1934), where she painted eight panels with her son Alexander (1935–36). Adopted French citizenship (1947). Painted self-portraits and still-lifes when confined to her apartment by illness (1930s–50s), enjoyed a revival of interest in her work back in Russia (1950s–60s) and finally saw her daughter Tatyana and son Yevgeny for the first time in forty years when they were allowed to visit Paris during the Khrushchev Thaw (1960s). Died in Paris and buried at the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (1967). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1910). Contributed to the Exhibition of Modern Russian Female Portraiture in St Petersburg (1910), Union of Russian Artists in St Petersburg (1910), World of Art (1911, 1912, 1913, 1915, 1916, 1922, 1924), Exhibition of Russian Landscapes in Petrograd (1918), First Art Exhibition of Kharkiv Soviet of Worker Deputies in Kharkiv (1919), House of Artists in Petrograd (1920), Peasantry in Russian Painting (18th–20th Centuries) at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1924), Travelling Exhibition of Russian Art in the United States and Canada (1924–25), Woman in Russian Painting at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1925), Twenty-Fourth Annual International Exhibition of Paintings at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh (1925), Exhibition of Museum Paintings in Odessa (1926), Travelling Exhibition of Soviet Art in Harbin, Tokyo and Aomori (1926–27), World of Art (Selected Artists) at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris (1927), Exhibition of Old and New Russian Art at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (1928), Exhibition of Russian Painters at the Galerie Lesnick in Paris (1928), Modern Graphic Art in Yerevan (1929), Russian Painting and Graphic Art in Berlin (1930), Grand Exhibition of Russian Art in Belgrade (1930), Exhibitions of Male, Female and Children’s Portraiture at La Maison des artistes in Paris (1931, 1933, 1934), Exhibition of Russian Art: Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures and Decorative Fabrics at the Galerie d’Alignan in Paris (1931), Exhibition of Russian Art at the Galerie La Renaissance in Paris (1932), Russian Painting of the Past Two Centuries in Riga (1932), Children’s Faces and Scenes: Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings in Paris (1932–33), Russian Art (18th–20th Centuries) in Prague (1935), Salon d’Automne in Paris (1941), Portraits by Russian Painters of the 18th to 20th Centuries from Collections of Scientists, Writers and Artists at the Central House of Arts in Moscow (1946), Russian Painting in the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Century: Paintings, Sketches and Studies (From Private Collections) at the Central House of Arts in Moscow (1951–52), Portraits of Russian Artists (18th–20th Centuries) at the Central House of Arts in Moscow (1954), Russian Painters of the 18th to Early 20th Centuries (From Private Collections of Leningrad) at the Museum of Scientific Research of the USSR Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1954), Landscape in the Russian Painting of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries: Paintings, Sketches and Studies at the Central House of Arts in Moscow (1955), Russian Paintings from the Second Half of the 18th to the Early 20th Century (From Private Collections) at the Museum of Scientific Research of the USSR Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1955), Russian Art in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries: Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Art (From Private Collections) at the Central House of Arts in Moscow (1957), Russian Artists in the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries (From Kievan Private Collections) at the Kiev Museum of Russian Art (1958), Russian Portraiture (18th to Early 20th Centuries) at the Museum of Scientific Research of the USSR Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1959), Benois Family Exhibition in London (1960–61), Paintings and Drawings by Russian Artists of the Early 20th Century from the Friedrich von Nothaft Collection at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (1962), New Acquisitions of Russian Pre-Revolutionary Art: Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Art at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1962), Ballet Night at the Maison de la Chimie in Paris (1962), Drawing, Watercolours, Gouaches and Pastels of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries from the Collection of the Tretyakov Gallery at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1963), Drawings and Watercolours by Russian Painters of the Late 17th to Early 20th Centuries (From Private Collections of Leningrad) at the Museum of Scientific Research of the USSR Academy of Arts in Leningrad (1964), Painting and Graphic Art (1900–1930) in Novosibirsk (1967), Exhibition of New Acquisitions at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1968), Russian Pre-Revolutionary and Soviet Art: Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Art (New Acquisitions 1963–68) at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1968), Portraiture in European Painting (16th to Early 20th Centuries): Paintings from Soviet and Foreign Museums at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1972) and the Grand Palais in Paris (1972), Drawings by Russian Painters of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1974), Alexander Pushkin in Fine Arts at the Kiev Museum of Russian Art (1974), Masterpieces of Russian and Soviet Painting at the Salon de Printemps in Paris (1974), Russian Portraiture (From Private Collections of Moscow) at the Union of Artists in Moscow (1975), Portraiture in Russian Painting of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1975), Drawings by Russian and Soviet Painters from the Alexei Sidorov Collection at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1975), Self-Portraiture in Russian and Soviet Art at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1976–77), Russian Painting (1890–1917): Paintings from the Museums of the USSR in Frankfurt-on-Main, Munich and Hamburg (1976–77), Russian Portraiture (18th to Early 20th Centuries) at the Vasily Vereschagin Museum of Art in Nikolaev (1977), Drawings and Watercolours (18th to Early 20th Centuries): New Acquisitions at the Russian Museum in Leningrad (1979), Paris-Moscou (1900–1930) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1979), Exhibition of Acquisitions at the Vasily Vereschagin Museum of Art in Nikolaev (1980–81), Moscow-Paris (1900–1930) at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (1981), The World of Art of Russian Painters (1898–1924) in Turin and Naples (1981–82), Art and Revolution in Japan (1982), Russian Fine Art of the Early 20th Century (From Private Collections of Leningrad) in Leningrad (1985) and Images of Russian Woman in Moscow (1987). One-woman shows at the Galerie Jean Charpentier in Paris (1927, 1930–31, 1932, 1938), Vyborg Cultural Centre in Leningrad (1928–29, with Vladimir Lebedev), Galerie Vladimir Hirschmann in Paris (1929), Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris (1929), Galerie Brescottes in Antwerp and Galerie Georges Petit in Brussels (1931, with Dimitri Bouchène), the artist’s studio in Paris (1954, with Alexander and Ekaterina Serebryakov), Union of Artists in Moscow (1965), Kiev Museum of Russian Art (1965), Russian Museum in Leningrad (1966), Novosibirsk Regional Picture Gallery (1966), Novosibirsk Science Centre (1979), Novosibirsk Regional Picture Gallery (1979), Chelyabinsk Regional Picture Gallery (1980), Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow (1986) and the Russian Embassy in Paris (1995).