Serebryakova Zinaida biography and description of paintings. Biography

Biography of Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova

(1884-1967)

Zinaida Serebryakova was born on November 28, 1884 in the family estate “Neskuchnoe”, near Kharkov. Her father was a famous sculptor. Her mother came from the Benois family, and in her youth was a graphic artist. Her brothers were no less talented, the younger one was an architect, and the older one was a master of monumental painting and graphics.

Zinaida owes her artistic development primarily to her uncle Alexander Benois, her mother’s brother and older brother. The artist spent her childhood and youth in St. Petersburg in the house of her grandfather, architect N. L. Benois, and on the Neskuchny estate. Zinaida's attention was always attracted by the work of young peasant girls in the fields. Subsequently, this will be reflected more than once in her work.

In 1886, after the death of his father, the family moved from the estate to St. Petersburg. All family members were busy with creative activities, and Zina also painted with enthusiasm.

In 1900, Zinaida graduated from a women's gymnasium and entered an art school founded by Princess M.K. Tenisheva.

In 1902-1903, during a trip to Italy, she created many sketches and sketches.

In 1905 she married Boris Anatolyevich Serebryakov, her cousin. After the wedding, the young couple went to Paris. Here Zinaida attends the Academy de la Grande Chaumiere, works a lot, draws from life.

A year later, the young return home. In Neskuchny, Zinaida works hard - creating sketches, portraits and landscapes. In the very first works of the artist, one can already discern her own style and determine the range of her interests. In 1910, Zinaida Serebryakova experienced real success.

In 1910, at the 7th exhibition of Russian artists in Moscow, the Tretyakov Gallery acquired the self-portrait “At the Toilet” and the gouache “Greenery in Autumn”. Her landscapes are magnificent - pure, bright colors, perfection of technology, unprecedented beauty of nature.

The heyday of the artist’s work occurred in the years 1914-1917. Zinaida Serebryakova created a series of paintings dedicated to the Russian village, peasant labor and Russian nature - “Peasants”, “Sleeping Peasant Woman”.

The painting “Whitening the Canvas” revealed Serebryakova’s brilliant talent as a muralist.

In 1916, A. N. Benois was entrusted with painting the Kazansky railway station in Moscow, and he also recruited Zinaida to work. The artist took up the theme of Eastern countries: India, Japan, Türkiye. She allegorically represented these countries in the form of beautiful women. At the same time, she began working on compositions on themes of ancient myths. Self-portraits play a special role in Zinaida Serebryakova’s work.

During the Civil War, Zinaida's husband was on research in Siberia, and she and her children were in Neskuchny. It seemed impossible to move to Petrograd, and Zinaida went to Kharkov, where she found a job at the Archaeological Museum. Her family estate in Neskuchny burned down, and all her works were lost. Boris later died. Circumstances force the artist to leave Russia. She goes to France. All these years the artist lived in constant thoughts about her husband. She painted four portraits of her husband, which are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery and the Novosibirsk Art Gallery.

In the 20s, Zinaida Serebryakova returned with her children to Petrograd, to Benoit’s former apartment. Zinaida's daughter Tatyana began studying ballet. Zinaida and her daughter visit the Mariinsky Theater and go behind the scenes. At the theater, Zinaida constantly drew. In 1922, she created a portrait of D. Balanchine in the costume of Bacchus. Creative communication with ballerinas over three years was reflected in an amazing series of ballet portraits and compositions.

The family is going through difficult times. Serebryakova tried to paint paintings to order, but it didn’t work out for her. She loved working with nature.

In the first years after the revolution, lively exhibition activity began in the country. In 1924, Serebryakova became an exhibitor at a large exhibition of Russian fine art in America. All the paintings presented to her were sold. With the money raised, she decides to go to Paris to organize an exhibition and receive orders. In 1924 she leaves.

The years spent in Paris did not bring her joy or creative satisfaction. She yearned for her homeland and tried to reflect her love for her in her paintings. Her first exhibition took place only in 1927. She sent the money she earned to her mother and children.

In 1961, two Soviet artists visited her in Paris - S. Gerasimov and D. Shmarinov. Later in 1965, they organize an exhibition for her in Moscow.

In 1966, the last, large exhibition of Serebryakova’s works took place in Leningrad and Kyiv.

In 1967, in Paris at the age of 82, Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova died.

Creativity of Z.E. Serebryakova in the context of the work

Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova... This name is associated for me with a painting located in the Tretyakov Gallery: a young woman in front of a mirror... A feeling of amazing purity and clarity of the image, a rare combination of mental and physical beauty remains in my memory...

Ivan Antonovich Efremov in the novel "The Razor's Edge" recalls Zinaida Serebryakova as a wonderful Russian artist, "one of the most outstanding Russian masters, undeservedly forgotten." The artist devoted her entire life to collecting beauty, capturing it on her canvases.

Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova was born in 1884, into the Lanseray-Benois family, an illustrious Russian artistic dynasty. Her father, Evgeny Aleksandrovich Lansere, was a famous sculptor; he died when Zina was only 2 years old and she knew about him only from the stories of her relatives. Her mother, Ekaterina Nikolaevna Lanceray, came from the famous Benois family of artists and architects.

Zinaida Evgenievna spent her childhood and teenage years in St. Petersburg. The architecture and museums of St. Petersburg, and the luxurious park of Tsarskoye Selo, where the family went in the summer, had an influence on the formation of the young artist. The spirit of high art reigned in the house. In the Benois and Lancer families, the main meaning of life was service to art. Every day Zina could watch how adults worked selflessly, painted a lot in watercolors, a technique that everyone in the family mastered. The girl’s talent developed under the close attention of older family members: her mother and brothers, who were preparing to become professional artists. The entire home environment of the family fostered respect for classical art: stories from grandfather Nikolai Leontievich about the Academy of Arts, trips with children to Italy, where they got acquainted with the masterpieces of the Renaissance, and visits to museums. In 1905, in St. Petersburg, S. Diaghilev organized an exhibition of Russian portrait painters. For the first time, the beauty of the art of Rokotov, Levitsky, Borovikovsky, Venetsianov was revealed to the Russian public: Venetsianov’s portraits of peasants and the poeticization of peasant labor inspired Zinaida Serebryakova to create her paintings and pushed her to seriously work on portraits.

In 1905, she married Boris Anatolyevich Serebryakov, a neighbor on the estate. They had known each other since childhood and wanted to connect their lives, despite the fact that they were cousins. We had to overcome many obstacles, since they were of different religions and fairly close relatives. After trips to Belgorod and Kharkov to the spiritual authorities, permission was finally received and the young people were able to get married. Boris Anatolyevich was a student at the Institute of Railways and belonged to that part of the Russian intelligentsia who believed that a person should have a “mind and heart in harmony” and that spouses, despite all the differences in interests, should be like-minded. The young couple first went to Paris, and then, upon returning, settled in the family estate "Neskuchnoe" on the border of the Kursk region and Ukraine.

Zinaida Evgenievna loved the Russian village with all her heart. And when you love something, you see only the good and bright in it. The artist wrote that she “fell in love with the vast expanse of the fields, with the picturesque appearance of the peasants, so different from the city faces.” Sketches from rural life appear in her albums.

Her landscapes and sketches are close to impressionism in their purity and sound of colors, in such a way of displaying reality when the world is seen filled with pure inspiration and the joy of life.

Serebryakova will write many of her best works, inspired by the images of Russian peasant women. Peasant girls, the harmony of their pure souls and strong bodies, tempered by physical labor and life close to nature, will become for the artist the standard of that unconditional beauty that Ivan Antonovich Efremov speaks about in “The Razor’s Edge” through the lips of Ivan Girin: "...Beauty is the highest degree of expediency, the degree of harmonious correspondence of the combination of contradictory elements in every device, in every thing, in every organism. Therefore, every beautiful line, shape, combination is an expedient solution, developed by nature over millions of years of natural selection or found man in his search for the beautiful, that is, the most correct for a given thing. Beauty is that general pattern that levels out chaos, the great middle in expedient universality, comprehensively attractive, like a statue. It is not difficult, knowing materialist dialectics, to see that beauty is the correct line in unity and struggle of opposites, that very middle between the two sides of every phenomenon, every thing, which the ancient Greeks saw and called ariston - the best, considering a synonym for this word to be measure, or more precisely, a sense of measure. I imagine this measure as something extremely subtle - a razor blade, because finding it, implementing it, observing it is often as difficult as walking along a razor blade, almost invisible due to its extreme sharpness... The main thing I wanted to say is that there is an objective reality that is perceived by us, like unconditional beauty."

Zinaida Lansere, by Serebryakov’s husband, was born near Kharkov. She was destined to give birth to four children, become a widow, change from Kharkov to Petrograd, and then to Paris and there settle down in the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.

She was born and raised in a family where more than one generation worshiped art. Great-great-grandfather Caterino Cavos - originally from Italy, musician, author of operas and symphonies; great-grandfather, Albert Kavos - architect; grandfather - Nikolai Benois - architect, academician. Zinaida's father is the famous sculptor Nikolai Lanceray.

After the death of her father, Zina lived with her grandfather, Nikolai Benois, where a creative atmosphere reigned, and the very atmosphere of the house was permeated with the spirit of art. The dining room was decorated with paintings painted by her mother, a student at the Academy of Arts. The rooms contained antique furniture made by ancient masters. Famous people gathered in the house: Bakst, Somov, Diaghilev and others.

Zina herself loved to draw since childhood. She never thoroughly studied drawing anywhere: only two months at a private drawing school under the direction of I. Repin, and studied for two years in the workshop of O. E. Braz. But she knew how to learn, to absorb everything useful, and already at the age of 17 she easily learned to work with watercolors in two or three colors, to achieve purity and beauty of tone.

For health reasons, in 1901 she was taken to Italy, where she enthusiastically and extensively painted mountain landscapes with rich vegetation, the sea with coastal stones, narrow, sun-drenched streets, houses, and room interiors.

In 1905, Zina married railway engineer Serebryakov and went with him on a honeymoon to Paris. There she entered a workshop school, where she studied hard and imitated the Impressionists. But besides the streets and houses of Paris, she was interested in the life of the peasants, she sketched cattle, carts, and barns.

Returning to Moscow, Zinaida writes a lot, especially loves to paint portraits. Magazines began to say about her that she had a “big, colorful temperament.” She began to exhibit among already famous painters, and she was noticed. Later, A. Benois wrote about the exhibition of Serebryakova’s works: “...she gave the Russian public such a wonderful gift, such a “smile from ear to ear” that one cannot help but thank her...”

Serebryakova’s paintings were marked by complete spontaneity and simplicity, true artistic temperament, something ringing, young, laughing, sunny and clear. All her works amaze with their vitality and innate skill. And village boys, and students, and rooms, and fields - everything from Serebryakova comes out bright, living its own life and sweet.

Before the First World War, the artist visited Italy and Switzerland, where she painted many landscapes. She returned home in the summer of 1914, where she was greeted by gloomy and confused men's faces, wailing soldiers and roaring girls.

In 1916, Alexander Benois was offered to paint the Kazansky railway station in Moscow, then he invited recognized masters to work - Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Boris Kustodiev, and among these chosen ones was Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova.

In 1918, the Neskuchnoye estate, where the Serebryakovs lived, burned down. The family moved to Kharkov. Boris Anatolyevich, Zinaida's husband, contracted typhus in 1919 and died.

The Serebryakovs lived meagerly, sometimes on the verge of poverty. The artist was forced to earn extra money by drawing visual aids. A joyless life dragged on. Then the Serebryakovs moved to St. Petersburg and settled in the empty apartment of their grandfather N.L. Benois. In order to somehow survive, the artist enters the service of a visual aids workshop for a meager salary.

Meanwhile, in 1924, there was an exhibition of Serebryakova in America, at which about 150 paintings were sold. At that time it was a lot of money, especially in the destroyed Land of the Soviets. Alexandre Benois, who settled in Paris with his family, called them to them. Moreover, she received an order for a panel from Paris. What will a mother of four children living in the “restricted” Soviet Union do? Will he leave them and rush to France? Or will he still stay with them? In addition to the children, Serebryakova also has a sick mother in her arms. Means of livelihood - zero.

Serebryakova decided to go. Biographers claim: “Subsequently she repented and wanted to return to Russia, even to the USSR. But she failed.” But why didn't it work? Or did you still not want to? For example, Marina Tsvetaeva succeeded. Zinaida Serebryakova - no. Although her older brother, Evgeniy Lanceray, a Soviet professor, came to visit her in France. He worked in Tbilisi and was sent to Paris by decision of the People's Commissariat of Education of Georgia. They managed to send two children to her in France, two more remained in Russia - Serebryakova would see one of her daughters only 36 years later, during the Khrushchev Thaw.

France did not bring Serebryakova happiness. There was little money, she lived an almost poverty-stricken life. I sent pennies to the children. And she very much regretted her decision to leave Russia. And the creativity of the period of emigration was not so bright, splashing with colors, temperament. All the best is left at home.

Z. Serebryakova, 1900s.

Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova (1884-1967) – artist.

Zinaida Serebryakova was born on December 12, 1884 in the Neskuchnoye estate, Kursk province. She was the youngest of six children in the family of the sculptor Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Lanceray (1848-1886) and his wife Ekaterina Nikolaevna (1850-1933), née Benois.

Her father died when Zinaida was two years old, and her mother and children left Neskuchny for the St. Petersburg apartment of her father, Nikolai Leontievich Benois (1813-1898). In my grandfather’s house everything was alive with art: exhibitions, the theater, the Hermitage. Zinaida's mother was a graphic artist in her youth; her uncle Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960) and older brother Evgeniy Lanceray were fond of drawing.

The family was not surprised when the gifted girl decided to become an artist. For several years she changed schools, countries and teachers in search of what she needed. In 1900 - the art school of Princess Tenisheva. A year later, several months at Ilya Repin's school. Then a year in Italy. In 1903-1905 apprenticeship with portrait painter O.E. Braza (1873-1936). In 1905-1906 – Grand Chaumiere Academy in Paris.

In 1905, Zinaida Lansere married Boris Serebryakov, who was her cousin. They knew each other since childhood. And in 1910, the artist Zinaida Serebryakova received recognition for her painting “Behind the Toilet.” Family happiness and the joy of creativity!

The October Revolution found Zinaida Serebryakova in Neskuchny. In 1919, her husband died of typhus. She was left with four children and a sick mother. The estate was plundered, and in 1920 she left for Petrograd to live in her grandfather’s apartment. There was a place there after compaction.

Serebryakova went to Paris in 1924 and did not return. After some time, they managed to transport the children Sasha and Katya to her. She helped her mother and Tata and Zhenya, who remained with her, as best she could.

The brilliant artist Zinaida Serebryakova lived half her life in impoverished Parisian emigration. Fame abroad came to her after her death. And in your homeland? In the USSR in 1960, after 36 years of separation, her daughter Tatyana Borisovna Serebryakova, Tata, came to Paris. But the artist did not dare to follow her to Russia. There was no strength to move. Only in the spring of 1965 did the 80-year-old artist realize her dream - she came to Moscow for the opening of her first exhibition in the USSR.

Serebryakova - joy of life

In a scarf, 1911

Bather, 1911

Pierrot. Portrait 1911

Girl with a candle, 1911

In red. Portrait 1921

Biography of Serebryakova

Zinaida Serebryakova. Self-portrait 1930

Z.E. Serebryakova. Self-portrait 1946

Z.E. Serebryakova. Self-portrait 1956

• 1884. November 28 (December 12) - birth of a daughter, Zinaida, in the Neskuchnoye estate, Belgorod district, Kursk province, into the family of the sculptor Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Lanceray and his wife Ekaterina Nikolaevna (nee Benois).
• 1886. March 23 – father’s death from tuberculosis. Autumn - moving to St. Petersburg to visit his mother’s parents - academician of architecture Nikolai Leontievich Benois and grandmother Kamilla Albertovna.
• 1893. Study at the Kolomna women's gymnasium.
• 1898. December 11 – death of grandfather N.L. Benoit.
• 1899. Summer - the first summer after the death of my grandfather, entirely spent on the Neskuchnoye estate.
• 1900. Graduation from high school and admission to the M.K. Art School. Tenisheva.
• 1902. Ekaterina Nikolaevna’s trip with her daughters Ekaterina, Maria and Zinaida to Italy to Capri - “Capri” sketches.
• 1903. March - move to Rome, acquaintance under the leadership of A.N. Benois with the art of Antiquity and the Renaissance. Summer – work in Neskuchny on landscapes and sketches of peasants. Autumn – admission to O.E.’s workshop. Braza (studied there until 1905).
• 1905. Spring - visit organized by S.P. Diaghilev historical exhibition of portraits in the Tauride Palace. September 9 – marriage to Boris Anatolyevich Serebryakov. November – departure with his mother to Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere. December - the arrival of my husband in Paris, who entered the Paris Higher School of Roads and Bridges.
• 1906. Study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere. April – return to St. Petersburg. May 26 – birth of a son in Neskuchny, named after the artist’s father Evgeniy.
• 1907. September 7 – birth of son Alexander.
• 1908-1909. Serebryakova painted landscapes and portraits in Neskuchny.
• 1910. February - participation in the VII exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists in St. Petersburg with thirteen works. Acquisition of three works by the Tretyakov Gallery.
• 1911. December - participation in the World of Art exhibition in Moscow. Serebryakova was elected a member of the association.
• 1912. January 22 – birth of daughter Tatyana.
• 1913. June 28 – birth of daughter Catherine.
• 1914. May-June - trip to Northern Italy (Milan, Florence, Padua, Venice). Along the way - Berlin, Leipzig, Munich.
• 1915. November - Serebryakova’s participation in the exhibition of sketches, sketches and drawings “World of Art” in Petrograd.
• 1916. December - participation in the exhibition "World of Art" in Petrograd. Working on sketches of panels for the Kazansky railway station. Images of oriental beauties did not appear in the station's paintings.
• 1917. January - Serebryakova was nominated for the title of academician of the Academy of Arts. S.R. Ernst completed a monograph on Serebryakova’s work, published in 1922.
• 1918. Serebryakova with her mother and children lived in Kharkov in temporary apartments. Sometimes I came to Neskuchnoye.
• 1919. January - Zinaida Serebryakova came to her husband in Moscow. March 22 – death of B.A. Serebryakov from typhus in Kharkov. Autumn - the Neskuchnoye estate is looted and destroyed. November – relocation with mother and children to Kharkov. End of the year - participation in the "First Exhibition of Arts of the Kharkov Council of Workers' Deputies."
• 1920. January-October - work at the Archaeological Museum at Kharkov University. December – return to Petrograd.
• 1921. April - the Serebryakova family moved to the “Benoit house”. The acquisition by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts of a number of works by the artist with their subsequent transfer to the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery.
• 1922. May-June - participation in the World of Art exhibition in Petrograd. Start of work at the Choreographic School and the Mariinsky Theater on sketches of artistic dressing rooms and portraits of ballerinas.
• 1924. January - participation in the exhibition of artists "World of Art". March 8 – opening in New York of an exhibition of one hundred Russian artists in the USA. Of the 14 paintings by Serebryakova, two were sold. August 24 – Serebryakova’s departure from the USSR. September 4 – arrival in Paris.
• 1925. Spring - Serebryakova in England with her cousin N.L. Ustinova. May-June – work on custom portraits. Summer – son Alexander’s arrival in France. Moving with my son to Versailles, working on sketches in Versailles Park.
• 1927. March 26 - April 12 – Serebryakova’s exhibition at the J. Charpentier gallery. June-August – arrival on a business trip of E.E. Lansere.
• 1928. March - daughter Katya arrives in Paris. Summer - work in Bruges on portraits of members of the family of Baron J.A. de Brouwer. December – the start of a six-week trip to Morocco.
• 1929. January - end of trip to Morocco. February 23 - March 8 – exhibition of Moroccan works by Serebryakova at the Bernheim Jr. Gallery. April 30 - May 14 – Serebryakova’s exhibition in the gallery of V.O. Girshman.
• 1930. January-February - participation in an exhibition of Russian art in Berlin. Summer - a trip to the south of France, creating numerous landscapes in Collioure and Menton. Participation in an exhibition of Russian art in Belgrade.
• 1931. March-April - participation in exhibitions of portraits of the French Association of Artists. July-August – trip to Nice and Menton. November-December – exhibition (together with D. Buschen) in Antwerp and Brussels.
• 1932. February-March - trip to Morocco: work on portraits, landscapes, everyday scenes. Summer – work in Italy: landscapes of Florence and Assisi. December 3-18 – Serebryakova’s exhibition at the J. Charpentier gallery, articles by A.N. Benoit and K. Moclair. December – participation in the exhibition “Russian Art” at the Renaissance Gallery in Paris. Participation in the exhibition "Russian Painting of Two Centuries" in Riga.
• 1933. March 3 – mother’s death in Leningrad. April – participation in the exhibition of portraits of the French Association of Artists. Summer – trip to Switzerland and the south of France. Moving to Rue Blanche in Montmartre.
• 1934. April - participation in an exhibition of portraits at the House of Artists in Paris. July-August - Serebryakova in Brittany: work on landscapes, portraits of lacemakers and fishermen.
• 1935. Spring - participation in an exhibition of Russian art in London. Summer – trip to Esteny (Auvergne), creating still lifes with grapes. End of the year - preparation for painting the hall of the villa of Baron J.A. de Brouwer "Manoir du Relay". Participation in the exhibition "Russian Art of the 18th-20th Centuries" in Prague.
• 1936. Work on panels for Manoir du Relay. December – Serebryakova in Belgium to “try on” four panels in the hall of the Manoir.
• 1937. April - Serebryakova in Belgium to deliver the panels and finalize the maps written by her son Alexander. June – visit to the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris. June-August – trips to Brittany, the south of France, the Pyrenees.
• 1938. January 18 - February 1 - Serebryakova exhibition at the J. Charpentier gallery in Paris. June-August – trips to England and Corsica. Serebryakova has a sharp deterioration in her health - cardiac neurosis. On the recommendation of doctors, she went to Italy, to San Gimignano. December – eye surgery.
• 1939. May 6 – death of K.A. Somova. July-August - Serebryakova in Switzerland: work on portraits and landscapes. September 3 – France enters World War II. Moving to Campagne Premier Street.
• 1940. Beginning of the year - cessation of postal communication with relatives in the USSR. June 14 – German troops enter Paris.
• 1941. June 22 – German attack on the USSR. Autumn – participation in three works in the Autumn Salon. Work on landscapes of the Tuileries and Luxembourg Gardens.
• 1942. Operation for Graves' disease. Death in prison in Saratov of brother N.E. Lansere, arrested in 1938
• 1944. August 25 – liberation of Paris.
• 1946. September 13 - death in Moscow of brother E.E. Lansere. December – correspondence with relatives resumes.
• 1947-1948. Serebryakov in England: working on commissioned portraits and still lifes.
• 1949. August - trip to the French provinces of Auvergne and Burgundy to work on commissioned portraits.
• 1951. Beginning of permanent exhibition of Serebryakova’s works in the USSR at exhibitions from private collections and museum funds.
• 1953. Summer - Serebryakova in England: work on landscapes.
• 1954. May-June - nine-day exhibition of works, together with A.B. and E.B. Serebryakov, in a workshop on Campagne Premier Street.
• 1955. November - decision to bequeath several of his works to museums in the Soviet Union.
• 1956. August – meeting at A.N. Benoit and in his workshop with F.S., who arrived from Moscow. Bogorodsky.
• 1957. May-September - visits to Serebryakova by Vice President of the USSR Academy of Arts V.S. Kemenov.
• 1958. March – meeting between Serebryakova and V.S. Kemenov and the USSR Ambassador to France S.A. Vinogradov, who offered to return to their homeland. June - visit to the Moscow Art Theater's touring performance "The Cherry Orchard", meeting with the theater management and actress K. Ivanova.
• 1960. February 9 – death of A.N. Benoit in Paris. April marks the first visit to Paris of Tatyana’s daughter after thirty-six years of separation. December 15 – opening of the exhibition “The Benois Family” in London, in which Serebryakova participated in three landscapes.
• 1961. Appeal by T.B. Serebryakova to the board of the Union of Artists to organize an exhibition of her mother in the USSR. March - visit to Serebryakova by employees of the Soviet embassy, ​​visit of S.V. Gerasimova, D.A. Shmarinova, A.K. Sokolov to view the works.
• 1962. February 17 - participation with four works in the evening in favor of Russian disabled people of the First World War.
• 1964. May – daughter Tatyana arrives from Moscow. Spring-summer - Serebryakova selected and put in order works for an exhibition in Moscow. Sending works with the help of the Soviet embassy. Autumn – correspondence regarding the design of the poster and exhibition catalogue.
• 1965. May-June - exhibitions of Zinaida Serebryakova in Moscow at the Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists and Kyiv at the Kiev State Museum of Russian Art.
• 1966. February – visit to Serebryakova by art critic I.S. Zilberstein. March-April – an exhibition of Serebryakova’s paintings in Leningrad at the Russian Museum, which was a huge success. Spring – visit of the director of the Russian Museum V.A. Pushkareva. The Russian Museum acquired 21 works by Serebryakova from the exhibition. December – son Eugene’s first visit to Paris.
• 1967. Spring - Evgeny and Tatiana arrive in Paris to meet with their mother. Creation of portraits of Tatiana and Evgeniy, V.A. Pushkareva. September 19 – Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova died after a short illness. She was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève des Bois cemetery near Paris.

Serebryakova's paintings

The successful life of the talented artist Z.E. Serebryakova, after 1917 turned into years of wandering, suffering and memories of the past. She was torn between the need to create and the need to earn money to support her family. But Serebryakova’s paintings are always beauty and harmony, an open and friendly look.

Serebryakov in Moscow

• Komsomolskaya, 2. Kazansky railway station. In 1916, Z. Serebryakov, at the invitation of uncle A.N. Benoit took part in the painting of the station.
• Lavrushinsky, 10. Tretyakov Gallery. After an exhibition organized in 1910 by the World of Art association, the Tretyakov Gallery acquired several paintings by Serebryakova.

One of Zinaida Evgenievna’s brothers, Nikolai Evgenievich, was also a talented architect. A significant place in Russian and Soviet art belongs to the artist’s second brother, Evgeniy Evgenievich Lansere, a prominent master of monumental painting and graphics.

Serebryakova spent her childhood and youth in St. Petersburg in the house of her grandfather, architect N. L. Benois, and in Neskuchny. Everyone in the family lived by art; it was so commonplace that the girl’s special talent and her persistent desire to become an artist did not surprise anyone.

Serebryakova's years of study turned out to be short-lived. In 1901, she studied for several months at an art school headed by I. E. Repin, and then in the workshop of O. E. Braz.

In the very first works of Z. E. Serebryakova, which appeared at the exhibition in 1909, her independent handwriting, style and range of interests were determined. While studying the classical heritage of world art in the Hermitage, in museums in Italy and France, Serebryakov was attracted by the powerful plasticity of form, the ability to express the national character of the work of Tintoretto Poussin, Jordanes, Rubens. But she was especially captivated by the purity and chastity of A. G. Venetsianov’s images. She felt the significance of the simplicity and harmony of the inner world inherent in the Venetian peasants, and saw the organic connection of these traits with Russian nature. “I can’t stop admiring this wonderful artist,” she later wrote.

Life in Neskuchny also influenced the formation of the artist’s work: the pure colors of the surrounding landscape, the leisurely nature of estate life, the freedom and plasticity of the movements of working peasants delighted Serebryakova.

From her youth, the artist sought to express her love for the world and show its beauty. Serebryakova’s earliest works “Country Girl” (1906, Russian Russian Museum), “Orchard in Bloom” (1908, private collection) speak of the search for a favorite theme, of an acute sense of the beauty of Russian nature and the people associated with it. These are sketches from life, and already in her first experiments the artist showed extraordinary talent, confidence and courage.

Serebryakova’s self-portrait “At the Toilet” (1909, Tretyakov Gallery), first shown at a large exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists in 1910, brought success to the general public.

“A young woman lived in the deep wilderness of the village... and she had no other joy, no other aesthetic pleasure on the winter days that separated her from the whole world, like seeing her young, cheerful face in the mirror, like seeing her bare hands playing with a comb... ". Both the face itself and everything in this picture are young and fresh... There is not a trace of any modernist sophistication here. But the simple life environment in the light of youth becomes charming and joyful," wrote A. N. Benois about the painting.

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The self-portrait was followed by “Bather” (1911, Russian Russian Museum), a portrait of E. K. Lanceray (1911, private collection), a portrait of his mother, E. N. Lanceray (1912, Russian Russian Museum)—works that are striking in their maturity and rigor of composition. Serebryakova’s creativity reached its peak in 1914-1917. During this period, she created a series of paintings dedicated to the Russian village, peasant labor and Russian nature dear to her heart: “Peasants” (1914-1915, Russian Russian Museum), “Sleeping Peasant Woman” (private collection).

Among them, the most significant work is “Whitening the Canvas” (1917, Tretyakov Gallery), where Serebryakova’s bright talent as a muralist was revealed. The figures of peasant women depicted against the sky seem especially majestic and powerful due to the low horizon. The color composition, built on a combination of large planes of red, green, and brown, gives the small painting the character of a monumental decorative canvas, looking like part of a majestic frieze. This magnificent work sounds like a song of glory to peasant labor.

Serebryakova was a member of the World of Art association; The folk themes she chooses, harmony, powerful plasticity, and the generality of her painting solutions set the artist apart from other masters of this group. When in 1916 A. N. Benois was entrusted with the painting of the Kazan station in Moscow, he involved in the work, along with E. E. Lanceray, B. M. Kustodiev, M. V. Dobuzhinsky, and Z. E. Serebryakova. The artist took up the theme of the countries of the East: India, Japan, Turkey, Siam are represented by her allegorically in the form of beautiful women. At the same time, compositions were begun on themes from ancient myths, which remained unfinished.

In the work of Z. E. Serebryakova, a deeply personal, feminine spirit continued to develop, especially clearly manifested in the work on self-portraits: in them, the girl’s naive coquetry was replaced either by an expression of a feeling of maternal joy, or by tender poetic sadness.

Many of the artist’s plans were not destined to come true. Suddenly, Zinaida Evgenievna’s husband (Boris Aleksandrovich Serebryakov, a travel engineer) dies of typhus, leaving her mother and four children in her arms. In 1920, the family moved to Petrograd. The eldest daughter Tatyana entered ballet, and from that time on, the theme of theater became constant in Serebryakova’s work. The range of her creativity narrowed: most often the artist depicted ballerinas before a performance and, despite the merits and beauty of these works, they certainly could not satisfy the master.

In the fall of 1924, Serebryakova left for Paris, having received an order for a large decorative painting. At the end of her work, she intended to return to her homeland - her mother and two children remained here. But life turned out differently, and she remained in France.

Long years of life outside Russia did not bring Serebryakova joy and great creative satisfaction; they are full of homesickness. Her works created after 1924 indicate that even in a foreign land, the artist constantly strived for her favorite folk theme and remained faithful to realistic art.

Zinaida Evgenievna traveled a lot. And in Brittany (France), and in Algeria, and in Morocco, she was attracted as an artist by images of people from the people; Among the works created based on materials from the trips, portraits of peasants and fishermen of Brittany stand out.

In the landscapes and portraits of the last period, one can first of all feel the personality of the artist, her love for beauty, be it nature or man. And yet, something most important was lost - the connection with loved ones.

In 1966, a large exhibition of works by Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova took place in Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv. Feedback from visitors and recognition by the Soviet state of the merits of this great master brought great joy to the artist. Many works by Z. E. Serebryakova were acquired by museums in our country.

On September 19, 1967, in Paris at the age of eighty-two, Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova died.

Materials from the article by Petrova O.F. from the book: Dmitrienko A.F., Kuznetsova E.V., Petrova O.F., Fedorova N.A. 50 short biographies of masters of Russian art. Leningrad, 1971

The modern generation knows very little or very superficially about Zinaida Serebryakova. Of course, not everyone, but most people know this famous “self-portrait of the artist at the mirror,” whose real name is “Behind the Toilet.” It is from here that the artist’s work becomes widely known. But there are many, many other masterpieces that remain for many years in the shadow of the glory of one of the most famous paintings... And the self-portraits themselves - so much narcissism in painting can only be found in Zinaida Serebryakova...

In the history of Russian painting, women became known only on canvas, and as a rule, female images were painted by men... A woman artist is a common phenomenon in the modern world of art, but this was not always the case.

Today we will get acquainted with the works of one of the first Russian women who entered the history of painting - Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova, whose paintings are today sold at the world's most prestigious auctions and auctions.

For example, one of the last works of the artist painted in Russia is the painting “Sleeping Girl”. In 2015, it was sold for 3.85 million pounds ($5.9 million). This amount is almost eight times higher than the estimated value, which was 400-600 thousand pounds ($609-914 thousand). There was an intense struggle for the work by buyers who bid by telephone.

The fate of this painting is remarkable. There is a version that the painting depicts the artist’s youngest daughter, Catherine, who also became a famous artist. Ekaterina Serebryakova died relatively recently - in 2014. The painting “Sleeping Girl” was part of the collection of the former ambassador of the Russian Provisional Government in the United States, Boris Bakhmetyev (1880-1951), who lived in exile in America after the October Revolution. He purchased it at an exhibition of Russian artists in New York in 1923.

• It is known that with the money received for its sale, the artist went to France, from where she never returned.

Reading Serebryakova’s biography, it is very difficult to imagine a different path for little Zinaida, because in this artistic family everyone was born with pencils in their hands. Her grandfather Nikolai Benois was a famous architect, her father Evgeniy Lanceray was a famous sculptor, and her mother Ekaterina Nikolaevna, the daughter of the architect Nikolai Benois, the sister of the architect Leonty Benois and the artist Alexandre Benois, was a graphic artist in her youth. Zinaida's brothers Lansere Nikolai, a talented architect, the other, Evgeniy, played an important role in the history of Russian and Soviet art of monumental painting and graphics.

It is not surprising that on December 12, 1884, a talented girl whose future was already predetermined would be born into one of the Benois-Lanceret families most famous for art. Not by fate, but by family...

By the way, Zinaida would become world famous at the age of 25, having painted one of the brightest and most cheerful self-portraits of all time - “Self-Portrait in front of a Mirror” (1909).

It’s amazing how cheerful and bright canvases a person who was distinguished by isolation and wildness could create, and this against the backdrop of friendly and cheerful brothers and sisters. But it only seemed so, because the real inner world of a modest, weak and sickly girl was on canvas. Painting will become the most joyful activity and calling in the life of little Zinusha (as her family called her). And any directions will be portraits, landscapes and nudes.

Masterpieces of Zinaida Serebryakova

Bathhouse. 1913, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

At breakfast. 1914,

Harvest. 1915

Whitening the canvas. 1917, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Illuminated by the sun. 1928,

Sleeping model. 1941, Kyiv National Museum of Russian Art, Ukraine

Zinaida's maiden name is Lansere, and she became Serebryakova when she got married. This story deserves mention.

Zina had known Boris, her cousin, since childhood; over time, friendship grew into love. The young couple decided to get married, but they did not succeed right away. The parents were for it, but the church was against it because of the relationship of the lovers. However, 300 rubles and an appeal to a third priest, after two refusals, allowed him to solve the problem. In 1905 they got married.

Peasant woman with pots. 1900s

Portrait of Olga Konstantinovna Lanceray. 1910, Private collection

Bather. 1911, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

There is an assumption that “Bather” is another self-portrait of the artist. The direction of view, face, hair, lips - the girl in this picture is very similar to “Self-Portrait in a Pierrot Costume” - she is lower.

Pierrot (Self-portrait dressed as Pierrot). 1911, Odessa Art Museum, Ukraine

Girl with a candle. Self-portrait. 1911, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Zinaida traveled a lot. First Italy, where she went for treatment, then Paris, where she studies at the prestigious Académie de la Grande Chaumiere. But as an artist she was formed in St. Petersburg. The first known works were created here - in the city on the Neva. This was the heyday of the talented artist’s creativity. Endless exhibitions, parties in the famous “World of Arts” society, the first recognition of talent - the famous painting “Behind the Toilet”, shown for the first time at a large exhibition, brings wide fame.

The self-portrait was followed by “Bather” (1911, Russian Museum), “Peasants” (1914-1915, Russian Museum), “Harvest” (1915, Odessa Art Museum) and others... The most important of these works was “Whitening the Canvas” (1917 , State Tretyakov Gallery).

Nurse with a child. 1912, Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum

Peasant woman (with a rocker). 1916-1917, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Sleeping peasant woman. 1917, Private collection

Self-portrait in red. 1921, Private collection

In the ballet dressing room (“Big Ballerinas”). 1922, Ballet Ts. Puni “Pharaoh’s Daughter”, Private collection

Ballet restroom. Snowflakes. 1923, Ballet by P.I. Tchaikovsky “The Nutcracker”, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

By the way, the paintings with ballerinas are a so-called dialogue with another equally famous artist - the French painter Edgar Degas, whom she admired all her life. His ballerinas delighted and inspired them to paint “their own”, so different from all the others, in their unique manner of conveying elegance, plasticity, fine lines, grace...

Pay attention to the following picture - it is very symbolic.

House of cards. 1919, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

In the picture are the children of Zinaida and Boris Serebryakov. This period in the artist’s life is akin to a house of cards. October Revolution, death of a spouse from typhus. She is left with four children and a sick mother without any means of support. Hunger. There are no oil paints - you have to switch to charcoal and pencil. “House of Cards,” featuring all four orphaned children, is the most tragic work in her entire work.

Further, everything is very typical for the entire creative intelligentsia - life is under orders, you can’t write this, you can. Advice to switch to a different style, unambiguous hints to draw portraits of the commissars, but she refuses to accept the charters of the “new masters of life.”

In December 1920, Zinaida moved to Petrograd to her grandfather's apartment. She was lucky - the artists of the Moscow Art Theater were accommodated in this apartment for “condensation”. During this period, she painted on themes from theatrical life.

Self-portrait with daughters. 1921, Rybinsk State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Yaroslavl region.

Katya with dolls. 1923, Private collection

Bathhouse. 1926, Private collection

In 1923, her works participated in an exhibition of Russian artists taking place in the USA. She earned $500, but it couldn’t fill the gaps in the family budget. Zinaida decides to leave for Paris to improve her financial situation.

She failed to earn money in a year as planned. “Nobody understands that starting without a penny is incredibly difficult. But time goes by, and I keep fighting in the same place,” she writes to her mother in despair.

She was going to return to Russia, where her mother and children remained. However, she failed to return, and she finds herself cut off from her homeland and children. She sends all the little money she manages to earn back to Russia. She lived at this time on a Nansen passport (passport for refugees) and only in 1947 received French citizenship.

The eldest daughter Tatyana Serebryakova recalled that she was 12 years old when her mother left. She left for a short time, but Tata was very scared. As if she had a presentiment that the next time they would be able to see each other only after 36 years.

On the beach. 1927, Private collection

One day Zinaida Serebryakova received a tempting offer - to go on a creative journey to depict the nude figures of oriental maidens. But it turned out that it was simply impossible to find models in those places. Zinaida's translator came to the rescue - he brought his sisters and fiancee to her. No one before or after has been able to capture naked oriental women who are closed.

Despite her efforts, the artist was unable to realize her potential right away in Paris. The city of changeable moods and romance was in endless fashion trends and the style of a Russian emigrant did not suit this city. The demand for paintings was extremely negligible. On top of that, she simply didn’t know how to “do business.”

The artist, who repeatedly helped Zinaida Serebryakova in Paris, said: “She is so pathetic, unhappy, inept, everyone offends her.”

Lonely and irritated, she withdraws more and more into herself. Paris was enveloped in the new fashions and trends in art. The local public, unable to distinguish the beautiful from the bad, liked everything tasteless and mediocre in the theater, music, and literature.

“Life now seems to me to be meaningless vanity and lies - everyone’s brains are now very clogged, and now there is nothing sacred in the world, everything has been ruined, debunked, trampled into the dirt.”

But with her children in mind, she continues to work hard. Soon she manages to discharge Katya to her place, and a little later her son Alexander comes to see her. And then the iron curtain falls.

Serebryakova does not dare to return because her two children are in Paris, and she does not risk taking them to the USSR, where they could be declared “enemies of the people.” In Paris, she cannot fully integrate into her new life, because half of her heart remains there - with Zhenya, Tanya and her mother, whom the government refuses to let go abroad.

At the slightest opportunity, Serebryakova sends them money, but this is not always possible. In 1933, her mother dies of hunger in the Soviet Union.

Girl in pink. 1932, Private collection

It is possible to meet the children who remained in their homeland only 36 years later - during the Khrushchev Thaw. In 1960, her daughter Tatyana (Tata), who became a theater artist at the Moscow Art Theater, visited her. In 1966, large exhibitions of Serebryakova's works were shown in Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv.

Suddenly she becomes popular in Russia, her albums are printed in millions of copies, and her paintings are compared to Botticelli and Renoir.

On September 19, 1967, Zinaida Serebryakova died in Paris at the age of 82. She was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. Her dream of international fame came to her during her lifetime, but she did not have time to gain financial well-being and independence.