Zinaida Serebriakova
1886-1967
Zinaida Serebriakova was born on the estate of Neskuchnoye near Kharkov (now Ukraine) into the artistic Benois/Lanceray families (the Russian-English actor and writer Peter Ustinov was also related to her).
She studied under Repin and Osip Braz in St Petersburg, and between 1905 and 1906 at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.
Broad public recognition came with her ‘Self-portrait at the Dressing-Table’ (1909), first shown at the Union of Russian Artists in 1910. She joined the World of Art group in 1911, and stood out from its other members through her preference for popular themes, painted in a monumental style, such as ‘Peasants’ (1914–1915), or ‘Sleeping Peasant Girl’.
In 1916 Serebriakova designed the decorations for the Kazan railway station, but the Revolution brought tragedy and hardship. In 1919 her husband Boris died of typhus contracted in Bolshevik jails, leaving her without income and responsible for four children and a sick mother. Hunger became a major problem. She had to give up oil painting in favour of the less expensive techniques of charcoal and pencil and, though she found work at the Kharkov Archaeological Museum, life remained tough.
In the autumn of 1924, Serebriakova went to Paris, having received a commission for a large decorative mural but, on finishing this work, she was denied entry into the Soviet Union where her mother and children remained. It was only in 1926 and 1928 respectively that her younger children, Alexandre and Catherine, moved to Paris; her two older children, Yevgeny and Tatiana were denied exit.
In 1947, Serebriakova took French citizenship but it was not until Khruschev’s Thaw that she resumed contact with her family in the Soviet Union. In 1960, after 36 years of separation, her older daughter, Tatiana, was allowed to visit her.
Zinaida Serebriakova’s works were finally exhibited in the Soviet Union in 1966 – in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev – to great acclaim.
