Background

Ethnicity: Zinaida Serebriakova’s ancestors were of French and Italian origin.

Zinaida Yevgenyevna Serebriakova was born on December 10, 1884, in Neskuchnoye village, Kursk Governorate, Russian Empire (currently the village is a part of Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine) to a family of a famous sculptor Evgeny Aleksandrovich Lanceray and a talented graphic painter Ekaterina Nikolaevna Benois, a daughter of the architect Nicholas Benois who was a member of the Russian Academy of Science.

Zinaida’s uncle, Alexandre Benois, also chose the artistic career and co-founded the art group ‘Mir iskusstva’ (‘World of Art’). One more artistic relative of Serebriakova, her cousin Nadezhda Leontyevna Benois gave birth to the British actor and writer Peter Ustinov.

Zinaida had two elder brothers who were related to the art field as well. Nikolay Lanceray worked as an architect and Eugene Lanceray exercised the professions of graphic artist and sculptor.

Till the age of two, Zinaida had lived in the Neskuchnoye estate. Then, the family moved to Saint Petersburg where the artist spent her youth. Surrounded by so many artistic relatives, she revealed her drawing abilities at an early age.

Education

Zinaida Serebriakova received her general education at the women's gymnasium in 1900. A year later, Serebriakova was taught by the painter Ilya Repin. In 1902, she began her artistic training at Princess Maria Tenisheva’s art school. The following year, she became a pupil of the other master, the portraitist Osip Braz who had given her the art lessons for two years.

Zinaida Serebriakova travelled to Italy where she explored the art of great masters. While in the country, she produced a lot of sketches.

In 1905, Serebriakova entered the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. She spent one year there.

Career

Zinaida Serebriakova received her first acclaim after the exhibition of Mir Iskusstva organized by the Union of Russian Painters in 1910. The artist presented her canvases ‘At the Dressing-Table’ and ‘Winter crops. Autumn’. The paintings were purchased by the State Tretyakov Gallery.

The following years of 1914-1917 became a period of prosperity for the young artist. This time, Serebriakova created a great number of artworks on the rural life. In 1916, she was invited by Alexander Benois to participate at the decoration of the Kazan Station in Moscow along with her brother Eugene Lanceray, the artists Boris Kustodiev and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. For the project, Zinaida painted a canvas on the East topic.

At the outbreak of the Revolution of 1917, the luck left the painter. In 1919, Serebriakova’s husband moved the family to Kharkiv and soon died. Zinaida had no money for oil paints and often used charcoal to create her canvases. One of the most known paintings of this period became ‘House of cards’ depicting her four children.

A year later, Zinaida Serebriakova joined the staff of the Kharkov Archaeological Museum where she drew the sketches of exhibited objects. After, the artist relocated to Petrograd (currently Saint Petersburg) where she met art historian Sergey Ernst and the painter Dmitry Bushen. Their fascination with ballet pushed Serebriakova to create the series of paintings reflecting the backstage of the Mariinsky Theatre.

In 1924, the artist demonstrated fourteen of her paintings at the exhibition of Russian art in New York City. All the canvases, including ‘Sleeping Girl on a Red Blanket’, received good reviews from critics and were sold. Serebriakova decided to spend her money on the trip to Paris in order to find more commissions and organize her personal exhibitions. The political situation didn’t allow the artist to come back home.

While in the capital of France, she managed to organize some solo shows, the first of which took place in 1927. Nevertheless, the classical shapes of the artist’s canvases lost the attention of the public because of the avant-garde style popular by the time.

The following year, Serebriakova had a chance to visit Morocco due to the financial support of the baron Brouwer. During her four-year African stint, the artist made a great number of sketches depicting colourful local people. The canvases were exhibited at the Paris exhibition, but none of them was purchased.

Only in 1966, due to the help of Serebriakova’s children and various painters who admired her art, including Sergey Gerasimov and Dementiy Shmarinov, the huge retrospectives of her canvases were organized in Moscow, Leningrad (currently Saint Petersburg) and Kiev. The shows provided Zinaida Serebriakova with late recognition in the Soviet Union.

Till the end of her days, the artist lived and worked in France.

Achievements

• Zinaida Serebriakova was a talented painter and one of the first women who left her mark in the history of art.
  
  The most part of her artworks is nowadays held in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russian Federation. The hundred thirty anniversary of Serebriakova was marked by a huge retrospective organized by the museum.
  
  Both the Soviet Union and Russian Federation issued special postage stamps in the artist’s honour.
  
  A painting by Zinaida Serebriakova called ‘The Study of a Sleeping Girl’ was bought in 2015 at Sotheby's in London for $5,894,470.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Landscape. Village Neskuchnoye

  • Portrait of E. Solntseva, the Artist's Sister

  • Girls. Neskuchnoye

  • Portrait of Vera Makarova

  • Family Portrait

  • Portrait of Boris Serebriakov

  • Girl with a Сandle. Self-portrait

  • Portrait of a Peasant Woman

  • Portrait of Ekaterina Nikolaevna Lanceray. The Artist's Mother

  • Portrait of O. K. Lanceray

  • Bathing

  • Digging Trees in the Garden

  • Summer

  • Portrait of E. N. Heidenreich in Blue

  • Four Female Figures

  • Tata with Vegetables

  • Self-portrait

  • Portrait of E. K. Lanceray

  • Narcissus and the Nymph Echo. Etude

  • In the kitchen

  • Portrait of S. R. Ernst

  • Portrait S. N. Andronikova-Halpern

  • Bath

  • Autumn

  • Boulevard in Paris

  • Portrait of Natasha Lanceray with a Сat

  • Peasant with a Bottle of Kvass

  • Winter Wheat

  • Harvest

  • Self-portrait

  • Self-portrait with a brush

  • Landscape

  • Portrait of Ivanova in a Suit of Spaniard

  • Portrait of a Nurse

  • A.A. Cherkesova-Benois with a Son

  • Resting Ballerina

  • Trees in the Crimea

  • Sleeping Peasant

  • Neskuchnoye. Field.

  • Japan (odalisque)

  • Katyusha

  • Portrait of Tata in the Costume of Harlequin

  • Katya in Blue Dress by Christmas Tree

  • Portrait of a Ballerina L. A. Ivanova

  • Landscape with a River

  • Portrait of a Boy

  • Mountain Landscape. Switzerland

  • Statue of a Faun in the Garden of the Yusupovs in Saint Petersburg

  • Self-Portrait

  • In a Ballet Dressing Room (Swan Lake)

  • Portrait of G.I. Chulkov

  • Herring and Lemon

  • Self-portrait in Red

  • Neskuchnoye. Calf House

  • Lake in Tsarskoye Selo

  • On the Terrace in Kharkov

  • Apple Tree

  • Boys in Sailor’s Striped Vests

  • Eugene Lanceray in a Shako

  • Evgeny (Portrait of the artist’s son)

  • Portrait of E.I. Zolotarevsky in Childhood

  • Self-portrait with Daughters

  • In the Dressing Room

  • Portrait of M. N. Benois

  • Portrait of E. I. Finogenova

  • Tata and Katya at the Mirror

  • Peasants

  • Harvesting

  • Portrait of the Composer’s Daughter, E. F. Napravnik

  • Orchard

  • Bather

  • Portrait of O. I. Rybakova in Childhood

  • Study for painting 'Canvas whitening'

  • Village Neskuchnoye of Kursk Province

  • View of the Peter and Paul Fortress

  • Girls at the piano

  • Still Life with Katya

  • Katya with Dolls

  • Window

  • Portrait of M. A. Troynitskaya

  • In a Ballet Dressing Room (Big ballerinas)

  • Self-portrait

  • Sleeping Girl on the Blue (Katyusha on a blanket)

  • Self-portrait in a white blouse

  • Turkey (Two odalisques)

  • Snowflakes

  • Seated Nude

  • Peasant Girl

  • Portrait of a Student

  • Portrait of E. M. Eigel

  • Cabbage. Village Neskuchnoye

  • Portrait of Ekaterina Heidenreich in Red

  • Two Peasant Girls

  • Peasant Woman with pots

  • Nude. Sketch

  • Moloduha (Maria Zhegulina)

  • Portrait of a nurse

  • Portrait of Nadezhda Mikhailovna Kroshkina

  • Portrait of V. M. Dukelsky

  • Portrait of Boris Serebriakov

  • In the mountains. Switzerland

  • Still Life with Attributes of the Arts

  • Ballet dancers in their dressing room

  • Veranda in Spring

  • Portrait of a ballerina A. D. Danilova in a costume for the ballet Armida’s Pavilion

  • Portrait of a Woman

  • Portrait of Marietta Frangopulo

  • Capri

  • Orchard

  • Anna Akhmatova

  • Peasant Girl

  • Before the Storm (Village Neskuchnoye)

  • A herd of horses

  • Ballet washroom

  • Churchyard

  • A peasant woman with rolls of canvas on her shoulder and in her hands

  • Family Portrait

  • Orchard in bloom. Neskuchnoye

  • A peasant woman with a child

  • Diana and Actaeon

  • Portrait of Alexander Benois

  • India

  • Autumn Landscape

  • Portrait of G. I. Teslenko

  • Bobrinsky Palace in Petrograd

  • Autumn Landscape

  • Portrait of Boris Serebriakov

  • Portrait of a Girl with Tie

  • Country Girl

  • Portrait of A.I. Kunina

  • Portrait of S. R. Ernst

  • Poultry Yard

  • Winter landscape. Neskuchnoye

  • Portrait of E. E. Zelenkova nee Lanceray

  • Whitening canvas

  • Put on one’s shoes farmer

  • Portrait of a nurse

  • Pond in Tsarskoe Selo

  • Girl with a Doll

  • Winter in Tsarskoye Selo. Upper Bath

  • Nude Girl

  • Spring in Crimea

  • Portrait of a ballerina L.A. Ivanova

  • Alexander Levi Benois de Stetto

  • Harvest

  • India

  • Fields. Neskuchnoye

  • Portrait of Olga Konstantinovna Lanceray

  • Peasant woman

  • Gatchina. Interior

  • Dancer

  • Self-portrait

  • At the dressing table

  • Self-portrait wearing a scarf

  • Terrace

  • Green autumn

  • Spruce

  • Binka Asleep (Evgeny Serebriakov)

  • Pierrot (Self-portrait in the costume of Pierrot)

  • Portrait of Boris Serebriakov

  • Animal Farm in the village Neskuchnoye

  • Portrait of a young Woman

  • The Bridge at Gatchina (Karpin pond)

  • Katya at the kitchen table

  • At breakfast

  • House of cards

  • Nurse with a baby

  • Ballerinas in the dressing room

  • Nude

  • The Cameron Gallery in Tsarskoye Selo

  • The Bathhouse

  • In a ballet dressing room

  • Portrait of Boris Serebriakov

  • Girls Sylphides (Chopiniana Ballet)

  • Portrait of Evgeny Serebriakov

  • In the nursery. Neskuchnoye

  • Gray wolves attacked a goat

  • Self-portrait

  • Siam

  • Neskuchnoye. Plowing

  • Peasant Woman (with a dragonfly)

  • Still Life with Attributes of Art

  • Portrait of Lola Braz

  • Farmer spreading out a canvas

  • Blue Ballerinas

  • Portrait of a Peasant I. D. Golubev

  • In the studio. Paris

  • Study for a female portrait

  • Apples on the branches

  • Fields in Neskuchnoye

  • In the Braz’s studio. France

  • Portrait of the Artist D. D. Bushen

  • In the meadow

  • Nude

  • Autumn Landscape

  • Portrait of a ballerina E.A. Svekis

  • Portrait of Sergei Rostislavovich Ernst

  • Portrait of E.M. Edwards

  • Turkey

  • Portrait of O. K. Lanceray

Membership

• Mir Iskusstva , Russia

  1911

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "The artist created a special style in the hard genre of the children portrait (which is often simplified to doll-like or sentimental pictures); in her artworks, children don’t pose for the adults who admire them – they lived their important life of little people which has so many serious business and interest." Alexey Nikolaevich Savinov, an art historian

Connections

Zinaida Serebriakova married her cousin Boris Anatolevich Serebriakov in 1905. The family produced four children, two sons and two daughters whose names were Evgeny, Alexander, Tatiana and Ekaterina.

Boris Serebriakov died in 1919 of typhus at the age of thirty-nine. So, the artist lost her husband at the age of thirty-six, like her thirty-six years old mother had lost her father, died at the age of thirty-nine as well.

All children followed their mother’s steps and chose the artistic professions. Evgeny was a conservation architect, Alexander designed the interiors for museums, shops, palaces and did murals.

Tatiana devoted her life to the stage design at the Moscow Art Theatre. Ekaterina who lived till the age of hundred and one was a painter and one of the founders of Zinaida Serebriakova’s Foundation in France.

After her relocation to Paris in 1924, Zinaida Serebriakova hadn’t seen her son Evgeny and her daughter Tatiana for thirty-six years, until the Khruschev's Thaw.

Father:

Evgeny Aleksandrovich Lanceray

Mother:

Ekaterina Nikolaevna Benois

Uncle:

Alexandre Benois

Brother:

Nikolay Lanceray

Brother:

Eugene Lanceray

Grandfather:

Nicholas Benois

Cousin:

Peter Alexander Ustinov

husband:

Boris Anatolevich Serebriakov

Son:

Evgeny Borisovich Serebriakov

Son:

Alexander Borisovich Serebriakov

Daughter:

Tatiana Borisovna Serebriakova

Daughter:

Ekaterina Borisovna Serebriakova

mentor:

Ilya Repin

mentor:

Osip Braz

References

• Art Masters: Zinaida Serebriakova (Volume 71) A book by Dirk Stursberg
  2014
• The Dramatic Fate of the Artist in Russia: Zinaida Serebriakova A book by Yuri Karminsky contains more than two hundred of Serebriakova's best paintings
  2018