Background
She was born to a family of impoverished noble landowners. After her father"s death, her mother took them to Tver, where she entered an all-female grammar school.
She was born to a family of impoverished noble landowners. After her father"s death, her mother took them to Tver, where she entered an all-female grammar school.
Later, she attended a gymnasium in Moscow.
She was one of the only two women who worked with the Peredvizhniki. Foreign a time, she worked as a proofreader to help support her family. In 1880, she began auditing classes at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, under the direction of Vladimir Makovsky.
She also took private lessons from Nikolai Martynov, set up a studio on a small street and began exhibiting in 1890.
Three years later, she had a major showing at an art gallery owned by the publisher, Kozma Soldatyonkov. Makovsky also helped her to find students.
In 1897, she exhibited with the Peredvizhniki at their twenty-fifth exposition and her painting, "A Merry Moment", was acquired by Pavel Tretyakov. At this time, she was concerned about gender bias and signed her paintings as "A.L. Rzhevsky".
The first was Emiliya Shanks.
She later resigned, however, due to disagreements with their program In 1920, together with Nikolay Kasatkin, she organized an educational art studio for children who were ill with bone disease and did volunteer work at the Zakhar"in sanatorium, near Khimki, where she also painted frescoes.
In 1899, she officially became a member of the Peredvizhniki. Only the second (and last) woman to be so accepted.