Zinaida Serebryakova

Zinaida Yevgenyevna Serebriakova (née Lanceray) was a Russian female painter. The daughter of sculptor E. A. Lansere, sister of E. E. Lansere. From 1886, she lived in St. Petersburg in the house of her uncle N. L. Benois. She studied at the school-workshop of Princess M. K. Tenisheva under I. E. Repin in 1901, at the workshop of O. E. Braz from 1903 to 1905 and at the Academy of Grand Chaumeire in Paris from 1905 to 1906. She followed the traditions of Russian painting of the first half of the 19th century, the epoch of classicism and Renaissance painting. She painted female and children's portraits, scenes from peasants' life: The Bather (1911), In the Bath-House (1913), House of Cards (1919), are all housed in the State Russian Museum, At Dinner (1914), Whitening of the Linen (1917), exhibited in the State Tretyakov Gallery. She also executed townscapes of St. Petersburg, Tsarskoe Selo and Gatchina. She was a member of the World of Art from 1911, took part in exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In the 1920s, she created a series of pictorial and graphic portraits of ballet dancers of the State Academic Opera-Ballet Theatre. She lived in Paris from 1924. She painted landscapes of France, Italy and Morocco, she executed portraits of workers of art, among them S. S. Prokofyev, K. A. Somov, S. M. Lifar. Individual exhibitions of Serebryakova were held in Leningrad in 1929 and in 1966.