Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844-1930) was a Russian realist painter. He was the most renowned Russian artist of the 19th century, when his position in the world of art was comparable to that of Leo Tolstoy in literature.

He played a major role in bringing Russian art into the mainstream of European culture.

In 1863 he went to St. Petersburg Art Academy to study painting but had to enter Ivan Kramskoi preparatory school first. In 1874–1876 he showed at the Salon in Paris and at the exhibitions of the Itinerants' Society in Saint Petersburg.

He was awarded the title of academician in 1876.

In 1901 he was awarded the Legion of Honour. In 1911 he traveled with his common-law wife Natalia Nordman to the World Exhibition in Italy, where his painting 17 October 1905 and his portraits were displayed in their own separate room.

In 1916 Repin worked on his book of reminiscences, Far and Near, with the assistance of Korney Chukovsky.

He welcomed the February Revolution of 1917, but was rather skeptical towards the October Revolution. Soviet authorities asked him a number of times to come back, he remained in Finland for the rest of his life.

Celebrations were held in 1924 in Kuokkala to mark Repin's 80th birthday, followed by an exhibition of his works in Moscow.

In 1925 a jubilee exhibition of his works was held in the Russian Museum in Leningrad.

Repin persistently searched for new techniques and content to give his work more fullness and depth.

Repin had a set of favorite subjects, and a limited circle of people whose portraits he painted.

But he had a deep sense of purpose in his aesthetics, and had the great artistic gift to sense the spirit of the age and its reflection in the lives and characters of individuals.

Repin's search for truth and for an ideal led him in various directions artistically, influenced by hidden aspects of social and spiritual experiences as well as national culture.

Like most Russian realists of his times, Repin often based his works on dramatic conflicts, drawn from contemporary life or history.

He also used mythological images with a strong sense of purpose; some of his religious paintings are among his greatest.

His method was the reverse of the general approach of impressionism.

He produced works slowly and carefully. They were the result of close and detailed study.

With some of his paintings, he made one hundred or more preliminary sketches. He was never satisfied with his works, and often painted multiple versions, years apart.

He also changed and adjusted his methods constantly in order to obtain more effective arrangement, grouping and coloristic power.

Repin's style of portraiture was unique, but owed something to the influence of Eduard Manet and Diego Velázquez.

Repin was the first Russian artist to achieve European fame using specifically Russian themes. His 1873 painting Barge Haulers on the Volga, radically different from previous Russian paintings, made him the leader of a new movement of critical realism in Russian art.

He chose nature and character over academic formalism.

The triumph of this work was widespread, and it was praised by contemporaries like Vladimir Stasov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The paintings show his feeling of personal responsibility for the hard life of the common people and the destiny of Russia.

In the 1880s he produced many of his most famous works, and joined the Itinerants' Society.


Repin died in 1930 and was buried at the Penates.


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