Zinaida Serebriakova

Date

1909

Description

Creator of the image: Zinaida Serebriakova
Date of the image creation: 1909
Medium of the image: Oil on canvas
Person depicted: Zinaida Serebriakova

Born into an artistic family in what is now Ukraine, Zinaida Serebriakova (1884–1967) went on to become one of the first well-recognized female Russian painters. She studied under various artists and spent time in Italy and France, exploring impressionism, still-lives, landscapes and orientalism.

This image reproduced here is cropped from a large self-portrait called At The Dressing Table. It was painted when Serebriakova was 25-years-old. The young Russian artist gives an intimate glimpse of herself in this bright painting. She depicts herself looking into a mirror while brushing her long thick hair. Her eyes are not focused on her own image, but rather they look through the mirror and engage the viewer directly. The viewer meets her warm features and the immediacy of her presence.

After a period of success, Serebriakova’s luck changed with the coming of the October Revolution. Her husband (and first cousin) died from typhus, which he contracted while spending time in a Bolshevik prison. This left her without an income and with four dependent children. Scraping by, the painter ended up going to Paris in 1924 to work on an artist commission. However she was not allowed to return to the Ukraine, and thus was separated from her children. While she succeeded in bringing her two youngest to France, she remained separated from her eldest daughter for 36 years.

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