1844–1930

Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin was born in Chuhuiv, in present-day Ukraine, and studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Associated with the Peredvizhniki, or Wanderers, he became the leading Russian Realist. His major works include Barge Haulers on the Volga and Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. He painted portraits of Leo Tolstoy, Modest Mussorgsky and other cultural figures. From 1903 he lived at Penaty in Kuokkala, which became part of Finland, and died there in 1930.