Background
His father, Pyotr Prokopovich (1795-1843) and grandfather, Prokopy Danilovich (1764-c1811) were painters.
His father, Pyotr Prokopovich (1795-1843) and grandfather, Prokopy Danilovich (1764-c1811) were painters.
Later he studied with his maternal grandfather, a local icon painter named Ivan Babin.
He was the first to paint plein-air in the wilderness of the Urals. He was not related to the well-known military painter, Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin. His father was his first teacher.
From 1858 to 1865, he was enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Arts, where his most influential instructor was Sokrat Vorobyov, a landscape painter who had spent many years in Italy.
During these years, he also exhibited paintings of cityscapes, ranging from Moscow to Tallinn. In 1870, he gave up teaching and travelled for a year, painting.
After that, he returned to Saint St. Petersburg. In 1873, he was named an "Academician".
He later exhibited internationally, as well as in Russia, participating in the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and the Exposition Universelle (1878) in Paris.
In 1875 and 1876 he also worked for the Ural Railway Network, sketching scenes along the Chusovaya River, in preparation for extending the railway there. During the Russo-Turkish War, he painted with Russian troops in the Balkans and, on his return, created a panorama of the bombardment of the fortress at Ruse.