Boris Kustodiev (1878–1927)

Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev was a Russian painter and stage designer. Between 1893 and 1896, Kustodiev studied in theological seminary and took private art lessons in Astrakhan from Pavel Vlasov, a pupil of Vasily Perov. 

Subsequently, from 1896 to 1903, he attended Ilya Repin’s studio at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Concurrently, he took classes in sculpture under Dmitry Stelletsky and in etching under Vasiliy Mate. He first exhibited in 1896. “I have great hopes for Kustodiev,” wrote Repin. “He is a talented artist and a thoughtful and serious man with a deep love of art; he is making a careful study of nature…”When Repin was commissioned to paint a large-scale canvas to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the State Council, he invited Kustodiev to be his assistant.

The painting was extremely complex and involved a great deal of hard work. Together with his teacher, the young artist made portrait studies for the painting, and then executed the right-hand side of the final work. Also at this time, Kustodiev made a series of portraits of contemporaries whom he felt to be his spiritual comrades. These included the artist Ivan Bilibin (1901, Russian Museum), Moldovtsev (1901, Krasnodar Regional Art Museum), and the engraver Mate (1902, Russian Museum).

Working on these portraits considerably helped the artist, forcing him to make a close study of his model and to penetrate the complex world of the human sou