The work The Start of Spring is one of Ivan Endogurov''s best paintings, a worthy successor of the lyrical tradition of Russian landscapes of the last quarter of the 19th century. His contemporaries remarked on its "intimate character" and "the breadth, lightness and mood" of this canvas, which was one of the top 50 images for the French publication Treasures of Russian Painting (Paris, 1910). The artistic merit of the artist, who passed away at a young age, was confirmed by the establish¬ment of the Brothers Ivan and Sergei Endogurov Prize in 1899 by the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Endogurov Ivan

ENDOGUROV, Ivan Ivanovich
1861, Kronstadt - 1898, Capri
Painter. Studied under Efim Volkov in St Petersburg (1880s) and at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1884–1885). Member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1895). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1885). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1885, 1890), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1886–1889), periodical exhibitions of the Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1889), Imperial Society of Russian Watercolour Painters (1889–1895), First December Exhibition (1889), All-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod (1896), World Exhibition in Paris (1889) and others. Posthumous exhibition of his work in St Petersburg (1898). The Imperial Academy of Arts named a prize in honour of the brothers Ivan and Sergei Endogurov.