Ilya Efimovich Repin was born in 1844 in the small Ukrainian town of Chuguev into the family of a military settler. As a boy he was trained as an icon painter. At the age of 19 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. His arrival in the capital coincided with an important event in the artistic life of the 60s, the so-called ‘Rebellion of the Fourteen’, when 14 young artists left the Academy after refusing to use mythological subjects for their diploma works. They insisted that art should reflect real life, not classical scholarship, and formed the Society of the Peredvizhniki to promote their own aesthetic ideals. Later, Repin would become associated with the movement, and grow to be a close friend of some of the painters.
1864. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1867. Oil on canvas. The Picture Gallery, Taganrog, Russia.
1867. Oil on canvas. The National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
1869. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Read Note.
1870. Oil on canvas. The Museum of the Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1870-1873. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1871. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Read Note.
1873. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1874-1879. Oil on canvas. The State Art Museum Abramtsevo, Moscow region, Russia.
1874. Oil on canvas. The Irkutsk Art Museum, Irkutsk, Russia.
1875. Oil on canvas. Private collection.
1876. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Read Note.
1876. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1876. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1876. Oil on canvas. The K. Savitsky Picture Gallery, Penza, Russia.
1876. Oil on canvas. The Art Museum of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus.
1877. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
. 1877. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Read Note.
1877. Oil on canvas. The State Art Museum, Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia.
1877. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
Repin. by G. Stepnin. Russian Painters of the XIX century. Moscow. 1985.
Ilya Repin. by A. Fedotov-Davydov. Iskusstvo. Moscow. 1989.
Ilya Repin: Russia's Secret by H. W. Van OS. B.V. Waanders Uitgeverji, 2005.
Ilya Repin and the World of Russian Art by Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier. Columbia University Press, 1990.
The Art and Architecture of Russia (Pelican History Art) by George Heard Hamilton. Yale Univ Pr, 1992.
A Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Artists 1420-1970 by John Milner. Antique Collectors' Club, 1993.