Ilya Yefimovich Repin

Ilya Yefimovich Repin , 1844-1930, Russian historical and genre painter and sculptor. He studied in St. Petersburg and abroad and became the foremost representative of the realistic style in Russia. In his Volga Boatmen, The Arrest of a Political Offender, and The Terrorists Repin expressed criticism of the social order. His large historical paintings, e.g., Ivan the Terrible and The Cossacks Drafting a Letter to the Sultan, are his best-known works. Most of his pictures are in the museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Repin, Ilya (1844–1930). The most celebrated Russian painter of his day, equally renowned for his portraits (his sitters included many of his most famous contemporaries) and for his dramatic scenes from Russian history, painted in a colourful, full-blooded style. He became professor of history painting at the St Petersburg Academy in 1894 and was an influential teacher, his pupils including Grabar and Serov. Jawlensky and Werefkin were among the students who reacted against what they considered his academic style. After the 1917 Revolution Repin retired to his country home at Kuokkala, near St Petersburg (now renamed Repino after him), but he continued to be a figure of massive authority in Russian art. With the imposition of Socialist Realism in the 1930s he was established as the model and inspiration for the Soviet painter.