No, I’m not about to try to tell you that Ilia Repin is just a Ukrainian painter. What I’d like to do is show how he was more than the Russian painter that he’s normally labelled as.
Ilia Repin, or Ilya Yefimovich Repin, (1844-1930) was born in the town of Chuhuiv, to the south-east of the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. His father was an itinerant horse-seller who was a veteran of three major wars. Repin was schooled locally, and started his working life as an apprentice to an icon painter. In the autumn of 1863, when he was nineteen, he moved to Saint Petersburg to try to gain entry to the Imperial Academy of Arts there. He was successful at his second attempt early the following year.
Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844-1930), Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870-3), oil on canvas, 131.5 x 281 cm, State Russian Museum…
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