Zinaida Serebryakova lived for many years at Neskuchnoe, her estate in Kursk Province. Well acquainted with the life of the Russian countryside, the artist was particularly interested in such themes of peasant labour as reaping and bleaching linen. Serebryakova conducted her own artistic quests, inspired by Renaissance and Neoclassical painting which offered excellent opportunities for poetic images of the Russian peasantry and common human portraits, without focusing attention on ethnographic features.

Serebryakova Zinaida

Serebryakova, Zinaida Yevgenyevna (1884, Neskuchnoe (Kursk Gubernia) - 1967, Paris)
Painter, graphic artist. Sister of Yevgeny Lanceray and niece of Alexander Benois. Studied under Ilya Repin at the Princess Maria Tenisheva School (1901), at Osip Braz's studio in St Petersburg (1903-1905) and the Academic de la Grande-Chaumiere in Paris (1905-1906). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1910). Contributed to the Exhibition of Modern Female Portraits (1910) and the exhibitions of the Union of Russian Artists (1910), World of Art (1911-1924; member from 1910), Russian Landscapes (1918-1919), House of Arts (1920), International Exhibition in Pittsburgh (1925) and the Exhibitions of Russian Art in New York (1924), Toronto (1925), Los Angeles (1925), Paris (1927, 1932), Brussels (1928), Berlin (1930) and Belgrade (1930). Emigrated to Paris (1924).