Makarov Ivan Kuzmich (1822–1897) was a Russian painter and an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts for portrait painting. He was born on April 4, 1822, in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate — sources differ on the place: according to some, in Arzamas[1], according to others, in the selo of Uspenskoye[2]. He died on April 21, 1897, in Saint Petersburg[2]. The artist's works are held in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, the S. D. Erzya Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts in Saransk, the K. A. Savitsky Penza Regional Art Gallery, and other collections.[3]

Nizhny Novgorod Origins and the Start of His Career

Ivan Makarov came from the family of the painter Kuzma Alekseyevich Makarov, who worked at the Arzamas Art and Icon-Painting School of Alexander Vasilyevich Stupin. Ivan received his first drawing lessons from his father and then studied at that same Stupin school (1840–1845).[2] At the same time he attended the district school in Saransk, where his father had also founded a painting school, and helped him fulfill commissions for church painting.[3] His early paintings, sent to the Academy of Arts, were noted by the Council and earned Makarov the title of non-class artist; in addition, in 1842 the Academy issued him a certificate of free artist and secured his removal from the meshchane (townsman) estate of Saransk.[1]

Academic Career

In 1844–1845 Makarov moved to Saint Petersburg and enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Arts as an auditing student in the studio of Professor Aleksey Tarasovich Markov.[2] In 1845 he received a silver medal, second class, for the painting "A Girl at a Festival in Russian Costume."[1] In 1852–1853 he graduated from the Academy with a gold medal and was sent to Europe as a pensioner of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna — he visited Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Venice, Bologna, and Rome, traveled in the Grand Duchess's retinue, and gave drawing lessons to her children.[2][3] Among the works of this period are "The Italian Peddler" (1853–1855, Penza Regional Art Gallery) and a series of portraits of children from the Tolstoy family (1854).[2] On September 20, 1855, Makarov was awarded the title of academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts.[1]

Work

The core of Makarov's legacy consists of portraits — court, aristocratic, and family. Among them are portraits of Natalya Nikolayevna Pushkina-Lanskaya with her daughter Natalya, Baron Staal von Holstein (1859), N. F. Samsonova (around 1860), General N. G. Kaznakov (1861) and E. S. Kaznakova (around 1861), Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II (1866), A. P. Zubova (early 1880s), and the architect I. S. Kaminsky.[2] In 1859 he painted a double portrait of Sofya Perovskaya with her sister.[3] His contemporaries rated his works highly: the press described the exhibited canvases with delight.[1]

In the field of religious painting, Makarov took part in painting the dome of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, for which he was awarded an order, third class.[1][2] In the second half of the 1880s, his sketch of an icon of Alexander Nevsky for the Church of the Savior on Blood entered a competition; the experts — Botkin, Grigoriev, and Parland — preferred Nesterov's sketch, although some members of the commission favored Makarov's version for its "more life and less Byzantinism."[4] The artist belonged to the "Mussard Mondays" society.[2]

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Makarov Ivan Kuzmich (archive)
  2. rah.ru — MAKAROV Ivan Kuzmich (1822-1897)
  3. yavarda.ru — Makarov Ivan Kuzmich — Russian painter
  4. erzia-museum.ru — Ivan Kuzmich Makarov. New Materials. — S.D. Erzya Mordovian Museum