Meet the Artist: Vasili Timofeyev

A Young Girl with Berries

Vasili Timofeyev

1879

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TIMOFEYEV Vasili Timofeyevich

Born: 1835

Died: 1914

Known mainly as a master of depicting girls and women, and as a general portraitist of his contemporaries, Vasili Timofeyevich Timofeyev obtained his artistic formation as a scholarship student at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1864, he achieved the rank of Artist of the Third Rank for his painting A Young Jewish Boy at Prayer. Vasili Timofeyevich never gave himself over to despondency once he stared his independent artistic career. By degrees, he advanced in his chosen career, becoming an Artist of the Second Rank in 1865, and he reached Artist of the First Rank in 1866. The list of both his general works and portraits grew steadily, and visitors at the annual academic art exhibitions became familiar with many of them: A Portrait of Khokhlov (1865), A Workshop of the Young Artist (1865), A Portrait of Madame Stepanova (1867), A Portrait of Madame N (1868), A Portrait of Belyaev (1868), A Portrait of Monsieur N (1869), A Portrait of Makarov (1869), A Portrait of Merder (1875), A Portrait of Madame Levshina (1875), The Head of a Young Girl (1875), Three Female Heads (1885), The Female Visitor (1885), The Head of a Woman (1889), A Portrait of Madame *** (1889). These works all had interest, although we can never truly recapture the impression that contemporaries had of the faces of the innocent children and strict gentlemen painted by V T Timofeyev. The beauty, exquisiteness, and directness found in his paintings even now catch our fancy. His work is still admired in our time.

Мы – русские. Какой восторг!

http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/1066864.html#cutid1

Editor’s Note:

As there is only one work available readily by this artist, I decided to translate his biography for you. I believe it is the only information in English extant. I shall continue to do this for minor artists in future. This is off one of my favourite websites; the title in English is “We are Russians. What a wonder!” Unfortunately, it is all in Russian, that is why I am working to translate material from it. Wasn’t A Young Girl with Berries a wondrous piece of work?

Andrei Drozdov. A Girl with a Rooster. 2003

A Girl with a Rooster (Andrei Drozdov, 2003)

If you haven’t noticed, today’s theme is “young women in the country”. We have a peasant and a bourgeois by Kulikov, and this modern rendition of a small-town girl by Andrei Drozdov. Again, more similarity than not in all three images!

Ivan Kulikov. Spring. 1912

Spring (Ivan Kulikov, 1912)

Ivan Kulikov. A Daydreaming Woman. no date (1910s?)

A Daydreaming Woman (Ivan Kulikov, no date (1910s?))