Konstantin Korovin
1862-1939
Russia’s leading Impressionist painter joined the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1875, where he studied under Vasily Perov and Alexei Savrasov. There he became friends with Valentin Serov and Isaac Levitan, part of a circle of intellectual and cultural figures in which Korovin moved until his exile.
Finishing his studies in 1885, Korovin travelled to Paris and Spain. ‘Paris was a shock for me … Impressionists… in them I found everything for which I was chided back home in Moscow,’ he later wrote.
Korovin formed part of the Abramtsevo Circle, the artists’ colony outside Moscow, and became a member of the World of Art Group in 1890. Widely travelled, Korovin visited the Russian Far North, Scandinavia and all parts of Europe. Using material from these trips, he designed the Far North pavilion at the 1896 All Russia Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod, painting ten vast canvasses. In 1900 Korovin designed the Central Asia section of the Russian Empire pavilion at the Paris World Fair and was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government.
In 1905 he became an Academician of Painting and from 1909–1913 a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His list of pupils is long, extensive and of great importance. Gerasimov, Krymov, Kuprin and others paid tribute to his free attitude to painting.
During the First World War Korovin worked as a camouflage consultant in the Russian Army and was often seen at the front. After the October Revolution he continued to work in the theatre, designing stages for Richard Wagner’s ‘Die Walküre’ and ‘Siegfried’, as well as Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’.
In 1923 Korovin moved to Paris to help cure his heart condition and assist his handicapped son. But an intended personal exhibition of his works was stolen and the artist was left penniless.
In the last years of his life he produced stage designs for many of the major theatres of Europe, America, Asia and Australia, the most famous of which is his scenery for the Turin Opera House’s production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘The Golden Cockerel’.
