Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova, nee Lanceray, (10 December 1884 - 19 September 1967) holds a unique place in the history of Western art. A realist painter at a time when art was experimenting rapidly and the dominant movements in the art world were Futurism, Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism and the Art Nouveau, her unique touch brought her recognition and the respect of her peers, even as the traditions she represented were becoming less fashionable and irrelevant to the contemporary world. With some of her most acclaimed work being portraits, she can be described as the Last Great Portrait Painter.
The artist was born Zinaida Evgenievna Lanceray into a dynasty of professionally creative people. Her father was Evgeny Lanceray, a sculptor, her maternal grandfather was Nikolai Benois, a prominent architect, and her great great grandfather was Catarino Cavos, the composer. All three branches of the family: the Lanceray, the Cavos and the Benois were foreigners who had settled in Russia in the end of the 18th Century, when Russia, on the one hand, was going through a phase of increased interest in Western European culture, while Western Europe was going through a period of upheaval, with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The Benois were French, while both the Lancerays and Cavos were Italian.
Zinaida’s father Evgeny died young, when she was only 2 years old. As a result, her mother, Ekaterina Nikolaevna, moved along with her 6 children into the house of her father (Zinaida’s grandfather), Nikolai Benois.
The Benois household was a great environment for an artistically-inclined young girl. Benois was friendly with many figures of St. Petersburg’s art, theater and musical world, and practically everyone in the family dabbled in one or more of these either professionally or as a hobby. Zinaida learned to both make music and appreciate the stage, but it was art--sketching and watercolors--that fascinated her from an early age. The Benois family, unusually for the time, also believed in the importance of girls having a well-rounded education, and Zinaida attended the selective Kolomensky Women’s Gymnasium, which she graduated in 1900.
The family also owned an estate in the Ukrainian village of Neskuchnoye (literally “Not Boring”), located in modern-day Kharkiv Oblast. Zinaida spent many summers here, both as a child and as a young woman, and the intimate, family atmosphere of the country life was a key influence on the development of her personal style. Many of the major works of her early period were painted at Neskuchnoye.
After completing her education at the gymnasium, Zinaida expressed her desire to pursue art more seriously, a decision that was met supportively by her mother and grandfather. In 1901, she attended the art school of Princess Tenisheva, but was only able to do so for 25 days, before the school closed down. Her formal training continued in the studio of artist Osip Braz, who was an old-school neo-Classicist, and had his students practice by copying the works of the old masters at the Hermitage.
In 1905, she travelled to Paris to see what French art studios had to offer her. However, at this time, the various branches of modern art were all the rage in Paris, and Zinaida was frankly unimpressed with them. She enrolled at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere where she studied sketching and...
1905. Tempera and watercolor on paper. 62.5 x 34.9 cm. Private collection.
1905. Tempera and watercolor on paper. 62.5 x 34.9 cm. Private collection.
1907. Oil on canvas. 74 x 56 cm. Taganrog Art Gallery, Taganrog, Russia.
1907. Oil on canvas. 74 x 56 cm. Taganrog Art Gallery, Taganrog, Russia.
1908-9. Oil on canvas. 79.5 x 59 cm. Private collection.
1908-9. Tempera on paper. 27 x 35 cm. The Chelyabinsk Art Gallery, Chelyabinsk, Russia.
1908. Tempera on paper. 56 x 43.5 cm. Private collection.
1908-9. Tempera and charcoal on paper mounted on cardboard. 57.2 x 44.2 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1908-9. Tempera on paper. 47.7 x 56 cm. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1908-9. Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard. 75 x 65 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1908-9. Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard. 75 x 65 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1909. Tempera on paper. 63.6 x 44.3 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1909. Tempera on paper. 45.8 x 61.8 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1910. Tempera on paper. 44 x 44 cm. The Chelyabinsk Art Gallery, Chelyabinsk, Russia.
1910s. Oil on canvas. 55 x 78.5 cm. Donetsk Regional Art Museum, Donetsk, Ukraine.
1910. Tempera on paper mounted on cardboard. 47.3 x 61.7 cm. The Art Museum, Yaroslavl, Russia.
1910s. Tempera drawing. 38.8 x 61 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
1910. Tempera on paper. 68.8 x 44 cm. Private collection.
1910s. Oil on canvas. 62.8 x 84.3 cm. Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.
1910s. Tempera on paper. 43 x 39 cm. Kiev National Museum of Russian Art, Kiev, Ukraine.
Remarkable Russian Women in Pictures, Prose and Poetry by Marcelline Hutton. Zea Books, 2014.
Women-Artists of the Russian Avant Garde 1910-1930/ Kunstlerinnen de russichen Avantgarde. Galerie Gmurzynksa, 1980.