Zinaida Serebriakova 136th birthday谷歌标志标志

Zinaida Serebriakova 136th birthday谷歌标志
10 December 2020

Today’s Doodle honors 20th-century Russian painter Zinaida Serebriakova, who was renowned for her joyful realist style and thrived at a time when female painters were seldom recognized. Born on this day in 1884, Serebriakova left an indelible mark on her nation’s culture through masterful paintings of the contemporary life and landscapes of her Russian homeland.

Zinaida Serebriakova was born on an estate in the Kursk Province of Russia (present-day Ukraine) into a lineage full of respected artists. At a young age, she moved with her family to St. Petersburg but spent her summers back at the estate, whose bountiful natural landscapes inspired her early paintings. Over the following years, she studied the paintings of the Venetian masters in Italy and the French impressionists in Paris, and also apprenticed under the eminent Russian artist Osip Braz.

Serebriakova made her exhibition debut in 1910, where her painting ”Self-Portrait at the Dressing Table” (1909) was the talk of the show, and has since become one of her most famous works. In 1911, she joined the Russian art movement known as the World of Art and emphasized the group’s focus on national art and stylistic beauty in her work, including in her often rosy depictions of peasant life. After a move back to Paris in 1924, Serebriakova continued to paint landscapes and portraits throughout the remaining decades of her career.

In 1965, a retrospective exhibition honored Serebriakova’s work in Moscow and Kiev and the next year in Leningrad and Novosibirsk.

Happy birthday, Zinaida Serebriakova!