(1884-1967) Russian painter, graphic artist

Zinaida Serebryakova was born into a family where everyone was engaged in art. The great-grandfather of the artist A. Kavos, her grandfather N. Benois were famous architects. Father, E. Lanceray, was engaged in sculpture, his works are kept in leading museums of the country and the world. Mother, E. Lanceray (née Benois), studied painting with P. Chistyakov, who taught all the famous painters of Russia in the seventies and eighties of the XIX century. True, she did not become a professional, she considered herself an amateur artist. Brother, E. Lansere, became a painter, graphic artist, member of the World of Art society. Uncle Zinaida Serebryakova, A. Benois was considered a recognized authority in the history of art and was himself an outstanding painter.

Zinaida was born on the Neskuchnoye estate, which belonged to her father. After his sudden death, the mother of the artist moved with her children to St. Petersburg and settled in the house of her father, N. Benois. Since that time, Zinaida Serebryakova grew up in an atmosphere of admiration for art. The girl's ability to draw was noticed early, the artist herself wrote that she had been drawing for as long as she could remember.

Since 1901, Serebryakova attended the school of the philanthropist Princess M. Tenisheva, where I. Repin taught. A trip to Italy with her mother and sisters had a special influence on the formation of her creative manner.

Returning to Russia, Zinaida continued to take lessons, studied in 1903-1905. in the private art studio of O. Braz, a painter and graphic artist, who was a member of the World of Art group. In 1905 she went to France, where she entered the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, run by the artists Simon and Dochin. Soon her cousin B. Serebryakov joined her. She did a lot of drawing technique, while traveling around the country she constantly made various sketches.

The first works of the artist are sketches made in the Neskuchnoe family estate, located near Kharkov, where she was born and subsequently spent her summers constantly. In the artist's archive, many drawings and watercolors have been preserved: she painted almost everything she saw: peasants during agricultural and domestic work, animals, birds, flowers. Her landscape sketches are also interesting. It is believed that the work of A. Venetsianov, his images of Russian peasants, had a special influence on the artist.

Over time, it turned out that most of the creative heritage of Zinaida Serebryakova is made up of portraits of voluntary sitters - friends and relatives, as well as self-portraits. In the latter genre, various states of her life are consistently recorded: from a joyful outlook to a quiet sadness caused by difficult life ups and downs. She will gradually move away from the careful writing of things surrounding her autobiographical heroine, focusing more on conveying her own inner state. The researchers noted that close people do not age in the paintings of Serebryakova (portraits of Katya), because, once seeing their individuality, Zinaida Serebryakova reflects it on her canvases.

In 1905, Zinaida marries her cousin B. Serebryakov, who in 1908 received an engineering degree. The father had to ask for special permission from the church authorities for the marriage. It turned out to be successful, although Serebryakova's family life did not last long. During the revolutionary years, B. Serebryakov died, and his wife had to raise four children alone. All of them have shown themselves in the artistic field. Alexander worked a lot for cinema and theater, painted in watercolor, painting the interiors of private palaces in France and England, Katya became a painter.

The daughter was able to save her mother's last apartment, where most of the works of Zinaida Serebryakova, created in exile, are located. Even the artist's grandson, the son of her daughter Tatyana, Ivan Nikolaev, is known for his works in the field of monumental art: in particular, he designed the Borovitskaya metro station in Moscow.

Since 1909, Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova began to exhibit regularly, she participated in the seventh exhibition of the Union of Russian Artists (1910) and the exhibition "Modern Portrait of a Woman", arranged in the editorial office of the Apollo magazine in St. Petersburg. At the same time, professional fame came to her, and the “Self-Portrait” (1910) and one of the peasant compositions were acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery. Researchers note that created in 1914-1917. the paintings are already monumental canvases, in which the life of the peasants is consistently revealed.

Since 1911, Zinaida Serebryakova has been a regular exhibitor at the exhibitions of the World of Art society. She travels a lot: in the Crimea in the summer months (1911-13), in Italy and Switzerland (1914).

In 1914, A. Benois, at the request of the architect A. Shchusev, the author of the Kazan station project, led the work on the monumental murals of the station, he involved M. Dobuzhinsky, N. Lansere, N. Roerich and Zinaida Serebryakova, who made a number of sketches and panel drawings on the themes "India", "Siam", "Turkey", "Japan". Carrying out her plans, she spent many hours in libraries, studying the art and history of the countries of the East.

In 1917, Zinaida Serebryakova was nominated as an academician along with A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva and other female artists, but due to revolutionary events, the elections did not take place.

In the first post-revolutionary years, Serebryakova lived in Neskuchny with her family, where she survived the death of her husband from typhus and a fire in which her paintings almost burned down. In 1919, she worked in Kharkov, participated in the 1st exhibition of the Arts Department of the Kharkov Council, and the following year she moved to Petrograd, where she continued to work in museums. For several months, Zinaida Serebryakova worked as an artist at the Archaeological Museum, decorating the halls, showing amazing willpower and courage. After all, the salary was so meager that it was only enough for a pound of butter. There was no heating in the halls, fingers swelled from hunger and cold. Benois repeatedly sold her work to private collections and sent money to the artist. The artist's mother helped run the household.

Despite the difficult living conditions, Serebryakova continued to work: she bought paints at flea markets from young ladies who were once engaged in fine arts and now sold their property in order to feed themselves, painted scenes from the life of ballet dancers, and urban landscapes.

Zinaida Serebryakova wanted her children to get an education. Daughter Tanya studied at the Petrograd Choreographic School, and the artist often painted right in the theater, creating a whole series of paintings dedicated to dance (pastel 1922-1923). Even at the end of her career, Serebryakova remained faithful to the hobbies of her youth; her lyrical sketch-portrait of the famous ballerina Yvette Chauvire (1962) is interesting.

Children have always remained Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova's most beloved nature, she painted them in any setting: at the table, while playing, reading, when they were sleeping or dressing. The artist could make a sketch during the conversation, and then create a portrait based on it. Her sketch of the younger S. Prokofiev (the son of the composer) in 1927 is amazing: the figure, made in bluish-golden tones, is inscribed in red-brown furniture, which becomes a kind of frame .

The artist's works were presented at exhibitions by members of the House of Arts and the "World of Art" (in 1922 and 1924). In particular, Serebriakova presented 16 pastel portraits for the 1922 exhibition. In the same year, a monograph by the critic N. Ernst about the artist was published.

It is curious that practically all her life Zinaida Serebryakova painted nudes, not only achieving greater self-expression, but also expressing her life credo. She always believed in man, in his beauty. Therefore, often her paintings, painted in different techniques (oil, sanguine and pastel), are so rich in color transitions. The artist always compositionally accurately verified the location of nature on the canvas, at the same time achieving a special decorative effect of the image. A kind of prelude to the "nude" were the portraits of "Banshchits", on which the novice artist worked.

The evolution of the creative manner in her self-portraits is also noticeable: sometimes, for lack of another nature, she had to draw herself. From the naive coquetry of a girl who only knows the world, she comes to the image of her mother, filling her own image with soft lyrical and somewhat sad tones.

In 1924, Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova went to Paris to arrange an exhibition, A. Benois assumed that she would be able to earn some money and financially support her family. The artist believed that she was leaving for a short time, so she took only her son Alexander with her. In 1928, her daughter Katya came to visit her. The family was cut in half: another son and daughter stayed with the artist's mother. Moreover, after graduating from an architectural institute and leaving to work in Vladivostok, his son Eugene was taken to active military service and could not enter into correspondence with his mother. Tatyana visited her relatives only after the war, she became the keeper of the Serebryakova archive, the organizer of her exhibitions in Russia. Later, she began to make trips to her mother with her brother.

The time of Zinaida Serebryakova was divided between creativity for herself and commissioned works. She remained the head of the family, she had to earn money, but Serebriakova could not help but write. Ekaterina recalled that her mother always carried a pencil, pastels and watercolors with her, constantly making sketches during walks.

In the twenties, Zinaida Serebryakova participated in a number of exhibitions that took place around the globe: her works were exhibited in America (1923-1924) and Japan (1926-27). Initially, they were not in demand, although the artist usually exhibited up to a dozen works. But one of the buyers, Baron Brower, not only commissioned portraits of his family members, but also financed Serebryakova's trip to Morocco in 1928 and 1932. A. Benois described the portraits and still lifes of his niece as follows: “Such freshness, simplicity, accuracy, liveliness, so much light!” In a month and a half, Zinaida Serebryakova painted 60 sketches in pastel, masterfully conveying various types of people. Later, she painted decorative panels for the mansion of Baron Brower near Brussels (the interior design was carried out by her son Alexander). The motifs of the four seasons are reflected on the panel.

Although the material success from the Moroccan exhibition of Serebryakova was not great, nevertheless, the owners of private galleries decided to exhibit the works of the artist: in the Charpentier Gallery in Paris (in 1927, 1930/31, 1932, 1938), in the Paris galleries of V. Hirshman and Bernheim (1929). From 1927 to 1938, five personal exhibitions of the artist took place.

Fame brought orders, though not much, because Serebryakova did not like to paint ceremonial or cabinet portraits. Such, in particular, is the portrait of G. Hirshman (1925) created in Paris, the wife of a well-known businessman, captured at one time by V. Serov. But the portrait of Zinaida Serebryakova is more intimate. In it splendor is combined with special sophistication, we see, first of all, an elegant secular beauty, and not the arrogant owner of the mansion, as in the picture of Serov.

Serebryakova always sought to tell about a person, his interests, tastes, habits. She carefully recorded the inner world of the portrayed, trying to convey a certain state of mind. Therefore, the poses of her characters are natural and unconstrained; it seems that people took a break from their affairs for a while in order to pose for the artist (“Portrait of Mikhail Grinberg”, 1936).

Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova constantly participated in joint projects in which Russian art was presented (in Paris, in Brussels in 1928), in exhibitions of Russian artists in Berlin and Belgrade (1930), in a joint exhibition with D. Bush in Brussels and Antwerp (1931), in exhibitions of Russian art in Paris and Riga (1932), Prague (1935).

In the spring of 1932, Zinaida Serebryakova again worked in Morocco at the suggestion of Brower and A. Leboeuf. The Charpentier Gallery featured 63 works by the artist, 40 of which were created in Morocco. Several nudes can be considered unique, because Serebryakova became the first European artist who managed to persuade Moroccan women to pose naked.

She took every opportunity to go out into the wild. At the invitation of her relatives, Zinaida Serebryakova visited London several times, went to Brittany several times, from where she brought amazing sketches of Bretons, landscape sketches of the south of France have also been preserved. Serebryakova also drew views of Italy, where she visited in 1929 and 1932, she managed to visit Belgium and Switzerland.

Still lifes became an important component of her work. When she painted self-portraits, she just amused herself, trying to depict every little thing on the toilet. Later, independent compositions began to take shape from the components, individual objects. They still reflected the diversity of life and talked about the beauty of nature ("Picture with grapes", 1934; "Still life with vegetables", 1936).

After the war, abstract art became widespread. Zinaida Serebryakova, on the other hand, always gravitated towards a realistic manner of writing and could not count on the sale of her paintings, nevertheless, in 1954, the artist had a personal exhibition in her own studio in Paris, and in 1965-66. - personal retrospective exhibition in Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv and Novosibirsk.

Zinaida Serebryakova was very demanding about her work, she even called the painting “The Bather” (1911), stored in the Russian Museum, a sketch, although the picture is large and very informative in terms of artistic solution.

She worked in a variety of techniques: she used oil, pastel, tempera, graphite pencil. Only death could stop the tireless creative search that the artist had been conducting all her life. Serebryakova is buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery near Paris.

Zinaida Serebryakova

House of cards

Perhaps her name is not as well known as she deserved to be. But one of her paintings, the self-portrait “Behind the Toilet”, is probably remembered by everyone - once seen, it is impossible to forget. A young girl combs her long hair in front of a mirror, and her world is full of happiness and light. It seems that the whole life of the artist was just as joyful and happy - like that winter morning, when Zina Serebryakova looked in the mirror ...

She was born in a family where it was impossible not to draw: they liked to say in the house that "all children are born with a pencil in their hand." Zinaida's father, Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Lansere, was an excellent sculptor - one of the most talented animal painters. His wife Ekaterina Nikolaevna Benois came from a famous family of artists - she was the daughter of Nikolai Benois, the famous architect. Almost all of his children followed in the footsteps of their father: Leonty Nikolayevich also became an architect (and his daughter Nadezhda, who married Iona von Ustinov, became the mother of the famous actor and writer Peter Ustinov), Albert Nikolayevich taught watercolor painting at the Academy of Arts, but became most famous Alexander Nikolayevich is a well-known painter, one of the founders of the World of Art, a renowned theater artist and for some time the head of the Hermitage art gallery. “Sometimes you look around like this: this relative, this one, but this one probably didn’t draw. Then it turns out that he also painted. And not bad either, ”recalled one of Benoit’s relatives. Ekaterina Nikolaevna herself also drew - her specialty was graphics. She and Eugene Lansere had six children - and half of them connected their lives with art: son Nikolai became, following the example of his grandfather, an architect, and Eugene achieved recognition as a muralist. Zina, the youngest of Lansere's children, grew up in an atmosphere of service to art from early childhood.

She was born on December 10, 1884 at the Lansere Neskuchnoye estate, near Kharkov, and her first years passed there. But, unfortunately, in 1886, at the fortieth year of his life, the father of the family died of transient consumption. After burying her husband, Ekaterina Nikolaevna returned with her children to her parents' house, to St. Petersburg.

Zinaida Lansere, early 1900s

The situation in the Benois family was very unusual: three generations of artists, sculptors and architects lived under the same roof, breathing art, living it and thinking about it. Disputes about painting, about the merits or demerits of architectural plans, advice on drawing techniques, or theorizing about pure art filled the house. It is not surprising that the fragile, big-eyed Zina learned to draw almost before she could talk. According to the memoirs of relatives, she grew up as a closed, shy, “sickly and rather unsociable child, in which she resembled her father and did not at all resemble her mother, or her brothers and sisters, who all had a cheerful and sociable disposition,” wrote Alexander Benois. She spent almost all her free time drawing - with the help of her brothers and uncles, she mastered the technique of watercolor and oil painting very early, and tirelessly trained all day long, drawing everything that surrounded her - the rooms of the house, relatives, landscapes outside the window, plates with lunch ... The greatest authority for Zina was Alexander Benois: when he, having discovered the work of the almost forgotten Venetsianov, became an ardent propagandist of his manner, his niece also fell in love with this artist. The works of Alexander - bright and full of inner joy, peasant landscapes, female images and genre scenes from the paintings of Venetsianov - made a deep impression on Zina. It is not for nothing that researchers find in her own works the influence of the themes and mood of Venetian paintings. Inspired by Benois, Zina wrote a lot in Neskuchny, where she spent every summer, a peasant nature - fields and village houses, peasant women and their children.

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1900, Zina entered the Art School of Princess Tenisheva: this educational institution was supposed to prepare young people for admission to the Academy of Arts, and Ilya Repin himself was one of the teachers. The students under his guidance painted plasters, went to sketches and copied the masterpieces of the Hermitage - the paintings of the old masters gave Zina strictness of lines, restraint of composition and love for a realistic style, as opposed to impressionism and its derivatives, which were beginning to come into fashion. “She worked a lot, wrote a lot, was not at all subject to artistic fashion. What came from her heart, she did, ”said her brother about Zinaida. In the autumn of 1902, Zinaida and her mother went to Italy - for several months they wandered through museums and galleries, examined ancient ruins and looked into cathedrals, painted sun-drenched shores and hills overgrown with dense greenery. Returning in the spring of 1903, Zina began studying in the class of Osip Immanuilovich Bran, a fashionable portrait painter: they recalled that Bran, inundated with orders, paid little attention to his students, but even watching his work was very valuable. But most of all, Zinaida brought joy for months in her beloved Neskuchny - she was ready to draw it endlessly. Alexandre Benois described Neskuchnoye, a favorite corner of the whole family, as follows: in places small, succulent clumps of trees stood out, among which huts with their friendly square windows stood out brightly. Windmills sticking up the hills everywhere gave a peculiar picturesqueness. All this breathed grace ... ”The beauty of the landscapes, the purity and richness of colors, the seething joy of life that Zinaida saw among the surrounding peasants, shaped her artistic nature.

There, in Neskuchny, Zinaida met her fate. On the opposite bank of the Muromka River, the Serebryakovs lived on their own farm - the mother of the family, Zinaida Alexandrovna, was the sister of Zina's father. Her children grew up with the children of Lansere, and it is not surprising that Boris Serebryakov and Zina Lansere fell in love with each other as children. They agreed to get married a long time ago, and parents on both sides did not object to the choice of children, but there were other difficulties: Lansere and Benoit traditionally adhered to the Catholic faith - French blood flowed in their veins (the first Benoit fled to Russia from the French Revolution, Lansere's ancestor remained after war of 1812), only slightly diluted with Italian and German, and the Serebryakovs were Orthodox. In addition, Zina and Boris were cousins, and both religions did not approve of such closely related marriages. It took a lot of time and even more trouble with the church authorities for the lovers to get permission to marry.

3. Serebryakova. E.N. Lansere. Mother.

Zinaida Lansere and Boris Serebryakov got married in Neskuchny on September 9, 1905. Soon after the wedding, Zina left for Paris - every self-respecting artist simply had to visit this world capital of art. Soon Boris joined Zina - he studied at the Institute of Communications, wanted to be an engineer, build railways in Siberia. In Paris, Zina was stunned by the variety of the latest trends, art schools, trends and styles, but she herself remained true to realism, although it acquired some modernist features under the influence of the Parisian air: the lines in Serebryakova’s paintings became alive, like those of the Impressionists, they had movement and indescribable joy of the moment. On the advice of Alexandre Benois, Zina studied for some time at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere studio - however, to her considerable disappointment, little attention was paid here directly to training, preferring only to evaluate finished works. In fact, Serebryakova’s art education ended at the Paris Academy: from now on, she moved along her chosen creative path on her own.

Returning from France, the Serebryakovs settled in Neskuchnoye, only returning to St. Petersburg for the winter. It was in Neskuchny that their children were born: in 1906, Evgeny, a year later, Alexander. The family life of the Serebryakovs was surprisingly happy: so different in character and appearance, hobbies and temperament, they, as it turned out, perfectly complemented each other. Several years passed in calm happiness ... Zina took care of children, painted a lot, waited for her husband from trips - during one of these expectations, she painted that very self-portrait. “My husband Boris Anatolyevich,” Serebriakova recalled, “was on a business trip to explore the northern region of Siberia, in the taiga ... I decided to wait for his return in order to return to St. Petersburg together. The winter of this year came early, everything was covered with snow - our garden, the fields around - there were snowdrifts everywhere, it was impossible to go out, but it was warm and cozy in the house on the farm. I started to draw myself in the mirror and amused myself to portray every little thing “on the toilet”.

At the end of December 1909, brother Eugene, a member of the World of Art group, wrote to Zinaida with a request to send some work to the upcoming exhibition of the World of Art. Without thinking twice, she sent him a recently completed self-portrait "Behind the toilet." At the exhibition, where the works of Serov, Kustodiev, Vrubel hung, this painting by an unknown artist not only was not lost, but made a splash. Stunned by the skill of his own niece, Alexander Benois enthusiastically wrote: “Serebryakova’s self-portrait is undoubtedly the most pleasant, most joyful thing ... There is complete immediacy and simplicity: a true artistic temperament, something sonorous, young, laughing, sunny and clear, something absolutely artistic ... To me What is especially charming about this portrait is precisely that there is no “demonism” in it, which has recently become downright street vulgarity. Even a certain sensuality contained in this image is of the most innocent, immediate quality. There is something childish in this side view of the "forest nymph", something playful, cheerful... And both the face itself and everything in this picture is youthful and fresh... There is not a trace of any modernist sophistication here. But a simple and even vulgar life situation in the light of youth becomes charming and joyful. On the advice of Valentin Serov, who was also impressed by the skill and unprecedented cheerfulness of the painting, “Behind the Toilet” and two more paintings were acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery.

3. Lansere. Portrait of Boris Serebryakov, 1903

3. Serebryakova, Behind the toilet. Self portrait, 1909

The success of Serebryakova and her paintings was incredible - it seemed to both the public and critics that from now on Serebriakova deservedly stand in the first glades of Russian painters. “In the art of the artist, with rare force, the main, most wonderful element of creativity is revealed,” critics wrote, “that excitement, joyful, deep and cordial, which creates everything in art and with which only one can truly feel and love the world and life.” She was accepted as a member of the World of Art, invited to galleries and vernissages, but Zinaida shied away from noisy gatherings, preferring the beauty and peace of her native Neskuchny to the bustling Petersburg, and quiet evenings with her family to conversations with critics and fellow workers. She gave birth to her husband two more daughters - Tatyana in 1912 and a year later Katya, who was called the Cat at home. And yet these years are considered the heyday of her art: in the early 1910s, Serebryakova created such unforgettable canvases as

The Bather is a portrait of her sister Ekaterina, combining classical grandeur and the indescribable lightness of the wind playing in her hair, Bathhouse, Peasants, Sleeping Peasant Woman, Whitening the Canvas, self-portraits and images of children. In her canvases, the Ukrainian sun is combined with the joyful lightness of the brushstroke, beautiful bodies live in unity with the landscape, and the eyes in the portraits with an almond-shaped cut and a slight slyness subtly resemble the eyes of Serebryakova herself.

In 1916, Alexander Benois received an order to paint the Kazansky railway station in Moscow: he invited Yevgeny Lansere, Boris Kustodiev, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and Zinaida Serebryakova to take part in the work. Zinaida got panels on an oriental theme - perhaps the Asian flavor was especially close to her, because her beloved Boris at that time headed the survey party at the construction of the railway in South-Eastern Siberia. Unfortunately, this order was withdrawn, and Serebryakova's sketches - embodied in beautiful female images - India, Japan, Siam and Turkey - remained unrealized.

Zinaida Serebryakova with children in Neskuchny, ser. 1910s

Zinaida met the revolution in her beloved Neskuchny. At first, they lived as usual - metropolitan trends always took a very long time to reach the provinces, but then the world seemed to collapse. Once, peasants came to the house of the Serebryakovs - to warn that soon their house would be smashed, like all the landowners' estates in the district. Zinaida, who lived there with her children and her elderly mother - Boris was in Siberia - frightened, hastily packed her things and fled to Kharkov. Later, she was told that the estate was indeed destroyed, the house burned down, and with it her paintings, drawings, books ... In Kharkov, they ended up almost without funds. But even then, Zina continued to draw - however, due to lack of funds, instead of her favorite oil paints, she had to take charcoal and a pencil. Fortunately, Zina managed to get a job at the local Archaeological Museum, sketching exhibits for catalogs. But the connection with her husband was lost - for several months Zina was looking for him throughout Russia. “Not a line from Boris, it’s so scary that I’m completely crazy,” she wrote to her brother. At the beginning of 1919, she finally met her husband, miraculously reaching Moscow for such an occasion, and even persuaded Boris to go to Kharkov to see the children for a couple of days. On the way back, he had a heart attack, he decided to return, transferred to a military train - and there he contracted typhus. He barely managed to get to the family and died in the arms of his wife. Ironically, he, like Zinaida’s father, was only thirty-nine years old ... Ekaterina Nikolaevna Lansere wrote about this day to one of her sons: “It was terrible, the agony lasted five minutes: before that, he spoke and no one thought that through him there won't be five minutes. You can imagine, my dear, what kind of grief it was - the crying, sobbing of the children, the boys were inconsolable (Katyusha did not understand). Zinok cried little, but did not leave Borechka ... "

Zinaida, faithful to the memory of her husband, will never marry again, fall in love, and will not allow herself any hobbies. She knew how to love, but only once and for life. She had four children and an elderly mother in her arms, but there was no longer any joy or love. “... It always seemed to me,” she wrote to a friend, “that being loved and being in love is happiness, I was always like a child, not noticing life around, and was happy, although even then I knew sadness and tears ... So it is sad to realize that life is already behind us, that time is running, and there is nothing more than loneliness, old age and longing ahead, and there is still so much tenderness and feeling in the soul. Serebryakova expressed her feelings of those difficult days in one of the most tragic paintings “House of Cards”, an artistic metaphor of that sad time: four children dressed in mourning are building a house of cards, fragile as life itself.

In the autumn of 1920, Serebryakova was able to return to Petrograd: with the help of Alexandre Benois, she was not only offered a choice of two places - to work in a museum or the Academy of Arts - but they also provided travel for the whole family. However, Serebryakova preferred independent work: forced labor in the museum limited, as it seemed to her, her talent, and she could not and did not want to teach anyone other than her children. She again settled in the Benoit house - but how it has changed! Books and furniture were looted, the old family house was compacted, dividing the huge apartment into many small apartments. However, fortunately, actors were brought in to Benois - and the creative atmosphere, which was so appreciated by the guests of the house, was preserved. Former friends, brothers, connoisseurs and collectors came to visit Zina - they were attracted by her passion for art, and the indescribable comfort that she knew how to create around herself literally from nothing, and her own beauty - both external and internal. “I still will not forget what a strong impression her beautiful radiant eyes made on me,” recalled a colleague of the artist Galina Teslenko. - Despite the great grief ... and insurmountable difficulties of life - four children and a mother! - she looked much younger than her years, and her face was striking in the freshness of colors. The deep inner life that she lived created such an external charm that there was no way to resist.

3. Serebryakova. Bather, 1911

3. Serebryakova. House of Cards, 1919

However, Serebryakova’s work did not come to court in post-revolutionary Petrograd: always very critical of her work, Zinaida could not agree to decorate buildings or demonstrations, like many artists, she was not close to the “revolutionary” futuristic art so valued at that time. Instead, she continues to paint her children, landscapes, self-portraits... Especially often she painted the children she adored. “I was struck by the beauty of all the children of Zinaida Evgenievna,” wrote Galina Teslenko. - Each in his own way. The youngest, Katenka - the rest of the children called her the Cat - is a fragile porcelain figurine with golden hair, a delicate face of delightful coloring. The second, Teta, older than Katenka, struck me with her dark maternal eyes, alive, shining, joyful, eager to do something right now, at this moment. She was brown-haired and also with magnificent complexion. Katya at that time was about seven years old, Tate about eight. The first impression was fully justified. Tata turned out to be a lively, playful girl, Katya was more quiet, calm. The sons of Zinaida Evgenievna were not alike: Zhenya was blond with blue eyes, with a beautiful profile, and Shurik was brown-haired with dark hair, too gentle and affectionate for a boy.

The Serebryakovs lived very hard: there were few orders, and they were poorly paid. As one of her friends wrote, "Collectors for free, for food and worn things, took her works in abundance." And Galina Teslenko recalled: “Financially, Serebryakov's life was difficult, very difficult. As before, potato peel cutlets were a delicacy for lunch.” When her daughter Tatyana became interested in ballet and was even able to enroll in a choreographic school, Zinaida shared her love for dancing - she was allowed to be present backstage at the Mariinsky Theater on the days of performances, and she enthusiastically painted ballerinas, scenes from performances, everyday sketches of backstage life.

Gradually, the artistic life of the former capital returned to its former course: exhibitions and salons were organized, visitors and local collectors bought some works. In 1924, a large exhibition of works by Soviet artists was held in the United States - Serebryakova was exhibited among them. Two of her works were immediately bought, and inspired by this success, Zinaida decided to go abroad - perhaps there she would receive orders, be able to earn money that she would send to Russia. Having received the necessary documents with the help of the same Alexandre Benois, in September 1924, Zinaida, leaving her mother's children, left for France.

“I was twelve years old when my mother left for Paris,” Tatyana Serebryakova recalled many years later. - The steamer, going to Stetin, stood on the pier at the Lieutenant Schmidt bridge. Mom was already on board ... I almost fell into the water, my friends picked me up. Mom thought that she was leaving for a while, but my despair was boundless, I seemed to feel that I was parting with my mother for a long time, for decades ... ”And so it happened: Zinaida Serebryakova was able to return to her homeland only for a short time, after three decades.

Zinaida Serebryakova, 1920s

At first, Serebryakova managed to get an order for a large decorative panel in Paris, but then things did not go so well. She painted a lot of portraits and even gained a certain fame, which, however, did not bring almost any income. “Impractical, makes many portraits for nothing for a promise to advertise, but everyone, getting wonderful things, forgets about her, and they don’t lift a finger on a finger,” Konstantin Somov wrote about her. Although Zinaida was almost French by blood, she almost did not communicate with any of the locals in Paris - shy and reserved by nature, she painfully felt like a stranger in France. Her circle of friends was made up of a few emigrants she knew from Petrograd, whom she met at exhibitions or at Alexander Benois - he left the USSR in 1926, also intended to return someday, but in the end he remained abroad.

From homesickness, for the children left there, Zinaida was saved only by travel, during which she painted a lot: first she traveled around Brittany, then visited Switzerland, and in 1928, with the help of Baron Brower, who greatly appreciated her work, she was able to travel to North Africa . A trip to Morocco seemed to resurrect Serebriakova: a riot of colors, the sun, the long-forgotten joy of life and the lightness of being returned to her paintings. Many of the Moroccan works were later exhibited - the press spoke of them very favorably, calling Serebryakova "a master of European significance", "one of the most remarkable Russian artists of the era", but the exhibition did not have much resonance. At that time, there was a completely different art in fashion, and the few reviews of Serebryakova's drawings were drowned in an avalanche of articles about abstract art, surrealism and other modernist trends in painting. Her paintings seemed outdated, out of date, and gradually the artist herself began to feel unnecessary, outdated ...

In letters to her relatives, Zina constantly complained of loneliness, of longing for children, from which she dropped her hands. “Here I am alone,” she wrote to her mother, “no one takes it to heart that starting without a penny and with such responsibilities as mine (sending everything I earn to children) is insanely difficult, and time goes by, but I fight all in the same place. If only now, it’s impossible for me to work here in such heat, closeness and with such a crowd everywhere, I get tired of everything insanely ... I worry about how this winter will be with ours ... I send less and less money, because now here such a monetary crisis (with the fall of the franc) that there is no time for orders. In general, I often regret that I drove so hopelessly far from my own ... ". In the end, the relatives managed to send their son Shura to her: as soon as he arrived, the young man rushed to help his mother. He painted scenery for film studios, designed exhibitions, illustrated books, and created sketches of interiors. Over time, he grew into a fine artist whose watercolors preserved the magical look of pre-war Paris. “He draws all day long, tirelessly,” wrote Zinaida. “He is often dissatisfied with his things and terribly annoyed, and then he and Katyusha clash over trifles and terribly upset me with harsh characters (it’s true, they both went to me, and not to Borechka!) ” Katya managed to be transported to Paris in 1928 with the help of one of the grateful clients: Zinaida did not see the rest of the children for many years.

3. Serebryakova. Illuminated by the sun. 1932

3. Serebryakova. Self portrait, 1956

Drawing remained for Zinaida Serebryakova the only occupation, the main entertainment and way of life. Together with her daughter, they went to make sketches in the Louvre, then to sketches in the Bois de Boulogne, but Zinaida could not help but feel that she was moving further and further away from the creative life that always seemed to seething in Paris. “I remember my hopes, the“ plans ”of my youth - how much I wanted to do, how much was planned, and so nothing came of it - life broke down in its prime,” she wrote to her mother. She really literally physically felt that her whole life was crumbling like a house of cards - part there, part here, and neither collect nor correct ... Serebryakova wholeheartedly strove to return to Russia - but for some reason, long troubles could not be crowned with success. “If you knew, dear Uncle Shura,” she wrote to Alexandre Benois, “how I dream and want to leave in order to somehow change this life, where every day there is only acute concern for food (always insufficient and bad) and where is my the salary is so insignificant that it is not enough for the most necessary things. Orders for portraits are terribly rare and are paid for with pennies, eaten up before the portrait is ready. Before the war, she did not have time, and after that she already felt too old, tired, sick ... She was visited by Soviet artists who came to Paris - Sergei Gerasimov, Dementy Shmarinov - were called to the USSR, but after so many years, she could not decide, she was afraid to be there no one needs. “Maybe I should come back? she wrote to her daughter. “But who will need me there?” You, dear Tatusik, can't sit on your neck. And where to live there? Everywhere I will be superfluous, and even with drawing, folders ... "

Meanwhile, the children left behind in the Soviet Union grew up. Evgeny graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Leningrad Institute of Municipal Construction, worked in Vladivostok, returned to Leningrad, where he was engaged in the restoration of Peterhof. Tatyana, after graduating from a choreographic school, eventually also exchanged dance for decorative art: she painted fabrics, worked as a graphic designer and decorator in theaters, for example, in the famous Moscow Art Theater. In the late fifties, when the "thaw" made the first thaw holes in the "Iron Curtain", Tatyana decided to visit her mother. “Thank you for writing and that you want to start “actively” collecting documents, etc. for a trip to us! she replied. – It will be such a great joy for us that I am even afraid to believe in such happiness... expectations, in some kind of annoyance that gnaws at my heart and in reproach to myself that I broke up with you ... ”In 1960, they were finally able to see each other: Tatyana, who had grown up, and Zinaida Evgenievna, who had grown old. “Mom never liked acting,” Tatyana recalled, “I couldn’t imagine how she looks now, and was delighted to see that she had strangely changed little. She remained true to herself not only in her beliefs in art, but also in appearance. The same bangs, the same black bow at the back, and a jacket with a skirt, and a blue robe and hands, from which came some familiar smell of oil paints from childhood. Through the efforts of Tatyana Borisovna, in 1965, an exhibition of Zinaida Serebryakova was organized in the Soviet Union - more than a hundred works by the artist, created in exile. The exhibition was an unprecedented success, and it was repeated in Kyiv and Leningrad. She died on September 19, 1967, after suffering a stroke. She was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois: on the day of the funeral it was pouring rain, mourning the great Russian artist, who crumbled like a house of cards, far from her homeland ...

Zinaida Pasternak Born in 1897. Died on June 23, 1966. She was buried in Peredelkino next to the grave of Pasternak. * * * It is believed that Pasternak received the Nobel Prize, which stole a good ten years of his life from him, for the novel Doctor Zhivago.

6. ZINAIDA SEREBRIAKOVA During my stay in Paris, fate brought me to many interesting people, including the famous Russian artist Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova.

Zinaida Gippius THE DECADENT MADONNA... Contemporaries called her "sylph", "witch" and "Sataness", glorified her literary talent and "Botticelli's" beauty, feared her and worshiped her, insulted and sang. She spent her whole life trying to keep a low profile

TB Serebryakova Childhood of Zinaida Serebryakova When I pick up an album where my grandmother pasted the children's drawings of her daughter, the future artist Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova, I remember her stories about children and their lives. Much of what surrounded in the early years

T. B. Serebryakova. Creativity Belonging to the Homeland Zinaida Serebryakova was born and spent her childhood in a family where for more than one hundred and fifty years the profession of architect and artist has passed from generation to generation. Even those of our relatives who from a young age

E. B. Serebryakova about her mother (in connection with the opening of an exhibition of works by Z. E. Serebryakova at the Russian Embassy in Paris in 1995) Mom left Russia and settled in France, in Paris, in 1924. It was very difficult for her financially. In 1925, her brother came to her, in 1928 - I.

A. N. Benois. Artistic letters. By exhibitions. Zinaida Serebryakova I feel a certain awkwardness when I start reviewing the exhibition of Zinaida Serebryakova. The fact is that she is my own niece, and after all, about very close ones, if not in memoirs, it’s not supposed

ZINAIDA ELGASHTINA Zinaida Ivanovna Elgashtina (1897-1979) - ballerina, student of V. F. Nezhinsky. Met with Voloshin in Koktebel in 1926, 1927, 1929. The manuscript of her memoirs is stored in the archives of the DMV.

Zinaida Nikolaevna Wives complicate life, Nekrasov believed. And he wondered why so many world guys, his friends, voluntarily restrict their freedom or, worse, pay attention to the opinions of wives. Wives simply interfere with male friendship! But on the other hand, some of

Zinaida PORTNOVA The girls left for the village in early June. The train tickets were bought days in advance and the suitcase was packed in advance. And although everything had long been ready for departure, the mother was exhausted in the morning. The decision to send the children for the whole summer to their grandmother in the village of Obol

GI SEREBRIAKOVA FE DZERZHINSKY I saw Felix Edmundovich several times. I remember how in an uncomfortable large room with dusty curtains in one of the furnished apartments of the 2nd House of Soviets, the current Metropol Hotel, at the tea table he read poetry in Polish.

Chapter 9. Galina Serebryakova: she sang the women of the French Revolution Devotee of the Enemy of the People Party Writer Galina Iosifovna Serebryakova was born on December 7, 1905 in Kyiv, died on June 30, 1980 in Moscow. Member of the Civil War. Joined the party in 1919

Zinaida Serebryakova Zinaida Serebryakova (1884–1967) is one of the first Russian women to enter the history of painting. And one of those who faced the cruelty of Soviet reality. She was born in the Neskuchnoye estate in the Benoit-Lancere family, famous for art. her grandfather

The modern generation knows very little or very superficially about Zinaida Serebryakova. Of course, not everyone, but most people know this famous “self-portrait of the artist at the mirror”, the real name of which is “Behind the toilet”. It is from him that the work of the artist becomes widely known. But there are many, many other masterpieces that have been in the shadow of the glory of one of the most famous canvases for many years ... And the self-portraits themselves - so much narcissism in painting can only be found in Zinaida Serebryakova ...

In the history of Russian painting, women became known only on canvas, and as a rule, female images were painted by men ... A woman artist in the modern world of art is a familiar phenomenon, but this was not always the case.

Today we will get acquainted with the works of one of the first Russian women who entered the history of painting - Zinaida Evgenievna Serebryakova, whose paintings are now sold at the most prestigious world auctions and auctions.

For example, one of the last works of the artist painted in Russia is the painting “Sleeping Girl”. In 2015, it was sold for 3.85 million pounds ($5.9 million). This amount is almost eight times higher than the estimated cost, which was 400-600 thousand pounds ($609-914 thousand). Buyers who participated in the auction by phone fought hard for the work.

The fate of this painting is noteworthy. There is a version that the painting depicts the youngest daughter of the artist Catherine, who also became a famous artist. Ekaterina Serebryakova died relatively recently - in 2014. The painting "Sleeping Girl" was part of the collection of the former ambassador of the Russian Provisional Government to the United States, Boris Bakhmetyev (1880-1951), who lived in exile in America after the October Revolution. He acquired it at an exhibition of Russian artists in New York in 1923.

It is known that with the money received for its sale, the artist went to France, from where she never returned.

Reading the biography of Serebryakova, it is very difficult to imagine a different path for little Zinaida, because in this artistic family everyone was born with pencils in their hands. Her grandfather Nikolai Benois was a famous architect, her father Yevgeny Lansere was a famous sculptor, and her mother Ekaterina Nikolaevna, daughter of architect Nikolai Benois, sister of architect Leonty Benois and artist Alexander Benois, was a graphic artist in her youth. The brothers of Zinaida Lansere Nikolai, a talented architect, the other, Evgeny, played an important role in the history of Russian and Soviet art of monumental painting and graphics.

It is not surprising that on December 12, 1884, a talented girl, whose future was already a foregone conclusion, will be born in one of the most famous Benoit-Lansere families in art. Not by fate, but by family ...

By the way, Zinaida will become world-famous at the age of 25, having painted one of the brightest and most cheerful self-portraits of all time - “Self-portrait in front of a mirror” (1909).

It is amazing how cheerful and bright canvases a person who was distinguished by isolation and wildness could create, and this is against the backdrop of friendly and cheerful brothers and sisters. But it only seemed so, because the real inner world of a modest, weak and sickly girl was on canvas. Painting will become the most joyful occupation and vocation in the life of little Zinusha (as her relatives called her). And any directions will be portraits, landscapes and nudes.

Masterpieces by Zinaida Serebryakova

Bath. 1913 State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

At breakfast. 1914

Harvest. 1915

Canvas bleaching. 1917 State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Illuminated by the sun. 1928

Sleeping model. 1941 Kyiv National Museum of Russian Art, Ukraine

Maiden name Zinaida - Lansere, and she became Serebryakova at marriage. This story deserves a mention.

With Boris, her cousin, Zina had known each other since childhood, over time, friendship grew into love. The young decided to get married, but they did not succeed immediately. Parents were in favor, but the church opposed because of the relationship of lovers. However, 300 rubles and an appeal to a third, after two refusals, the priest was allowed to solve the problem. In 1905 they got married.

Peasant woman with pots. 1900s

Portrait of Olga Konstantinovna Lansere. 1910, Private collection

Bather. 1911, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

There is an assumption that The Bather is another self-portrait of the artist. Direction of gaze, face, hair, lips - the girl in this picture is very similar to the "Self-portrait in Pierrot's costume" - she is lower.

Pierrot (Self-portrait dressed as Pierrot). 1911, Odessa Art Museum, Ukraine

Girl with a candle. Self-portrait. 1911, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Zinaida traveled a lot. First Italy, where she went for treatment, then Paris, where she studies at the prestigious art Academy de la Grande Chaumière. But as an artist, she was formed in St. Petersburg. The first known works are created here - in the city on the Neva. It was the heyday of creativity of a talented artist. Endless exhibitions, hangouts in the famous society "World of Arts", the first recognition of talent - the famous painting "Behind the toilet", shown for the first time at a large exhibition, brings wide popularity.

The self-portrait was followed by Bather (1911, Russian Museum), Peasants (1914-1915, Russian Museum), Harvest (1915, Odessa Art Museum) and others… The most important of these works was Whitening the Canvas (1917 , State Tretyakov Gallery).

Nurse with a child. 1912 Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum

Peasant woman (with a yoke). 1916-1917, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Sleeping peasant woman. 1917, Private collection

Self-portrait in red. 1921, Private collection

In the ballet dressing room ("Big Ballerinas"). 1922, Ballet Ts. Pugni "Pharaoh's Daughter", Private collection

Ballet restroom. Snowflakes. 1923, Ballet by P.I. Tchaikovsky "The Nutcracker", State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

By the way, the canvases with ballerinas are the so-called dialogue with another equally famous artist, the French painter Edgar Degas, whom she admired all her life. His ballerinas delighted and inspired to write “their own”, so different from everyone else, in the manner of conveying grace, plasticity, thin lines, grace peculiar only to her…

Pay attention to the following picture - it is very symbolic.

House of cards. 1919, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The picture shows the children of Zinaida and Boris Serebryakov. This period in the artist's life is akin to a house of cards. The October Revolution, the death of a spouse from typhus. She is left with four children and a sick mother without a livelihood. Hunger. No oil paints - you have to switch to charcoal and pencil. “House of Cards”, showing all four orphaned children, is the most tragic work in all her work.

Further, everything is very typical for the entire creative intelligentsia - life under orders, you can’t write this, you can. Advice to switch to a different style, unambiguous hints to paint portraits of commissars, but she refuses to accept the statutes of the "new masters of life."

In December 1920, Zinaida moved to Petrograd to her grandfather's apartment. She was lucky - the artists of the Moscow Art Theater Theater were settled in this apartment "for compaction". During this period, she paints on themes from the theatrical life.

Self-portrait with daughters. 1921 Rybinsk State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Yaroslavl Region

Katya with dolls. 1923 Private collection

Bath. 1926, Private collection

In 1923, her works were included in an exhibition of Russian artists in the United States. She made $500, but they couldn't patch up the gaps in the family budget. Zinaida decides to leave for Paris in order to improve her financial situation.

She failed to earn money in a year, as planned. “No one understands that it is insanely difficult to start without a penny. And time goes by, and I still fight in the same place, ”she writes to her mother in despair.

She was going to return to Russia, where her mother and children remained. However, she failed to return, and she is cut off from her homeland and children. All the little money that she manages to earn, she sends back to Russia. She lives at this time on a Nansen passport (passport for refugees) and only in 1947 receives French citizenship.

The eldest daughter Tatyana Serebryakova recalled that she was 12 years old when her mother left. She left for a short time, but Tate was very scared. As if she had a presentiment that the next time they could see each other only after 36 years.

On the beach. 1927, Private collection

One day, Zinaida Serebryakova received a tempting offer - to go on a creative journey to portray the naked figures of oriental maidens. But it turned out that it was simply impossible to find models in those places. An interpreter for Zinaida came to the rescue - he brought his sisters and his bride to her. No one before and after that was able to capture the closed oriental women naked.

Contrary to her efforts, the artist did not manage to realize herself immediately in Paris. The city of changeable moods and romance was in endless fashion trends and the style of a Russian emigrant did not suit this city. The demand for paintings was extremely negligible. On top of that, she simply did not know how to "do business."

The artist, who repeatedly helped Zinaida Serebryakova in Paris, said: “She is so pathetic, unhappy, inept, everyone offends her.”

Lonely and irritated, she withdraws more and more into herself. Paris was shrouded in vengeance and new fashion trends in art. The local public, unable to distinguish the beautiful from the bad, liked everything tasteless and mediocre in the theater, music, and literature.

“Life now seems to me a meaningless fuss and a lie - now everyone’s brains are very clogged, and now there is nothing sacred in the world, everything is ruined, debunked, trampled into the dirt”

But with her children in mind, she continues to work hard. Soon, Katya manages to be discharged to her, and a little later, her son Alexander comes to her. And then the iron curtain falls.

Serebriakova does not dare to return, because her two children are in Paris, and she does not risk taking them to the USSR, where they can be declared "enemies of the people". In Paris, she cannot fully engage in a new life, because half of her heart is left there - with Zhenya, Tanya and her mother, whom the government refuses to let go abroad.

At the slightest opportunity, Serebryakova sends them money, but this is not always possible. In 1933, her mother in the Union dies of starvation.

Girl in pink. 1932, Private collection

It is possible to meet with the children who remained at home only after 36 years - during the Khrushchev thaw. In 1960, her daughter Tatyana (Tata), who became a theater artist at the Moscow Art Theater, visits her. In 1966, large exhibitions of Serebryakova's work were shown in Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv.

Suddenly she becomes popular in Russia, her albums are printed in millions of copies, and her paintings are compared with Botticelli and Renoir.

On September 19, 1967, Zinaida Serebryakova died in Paris at the age of 82. She was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery. Her dream - international fame came to her during her lifetime, but did not have time to gain financial well-being and independence.

Quote from Bo4kaMeda

Age Stars. Zinaida Serebryakova

SERAFIMA CHEBOTARI

Z.Serebryakova. Self-portrait in red. 1921

Perhaps her name is not as well known as she deserved to be. But one of her paintings, a self-portrait “3a toilet” is probably remembered by everyone - having seen it once, it is impossible to forget. A young girl combs her long hair in front of a mirror, and the world
her full of happiness and light. It seems that the whole life of the artist was just as joyful and happy - like that winter morning when Zina Serebryakova looked in the mirror...

1964. Paris

She was born in a family where it was impossible not to draw: they liked to say in the house that "all children are born with a pencil in their hand." Zinaida's father, Yevgeny Alexandrovich Lansere, was an excellent sculptor - one of the most talented animal painters. His wife Ekaterina Nikolaevna Benois came from a famous family of artists - she was the daughter of Nikolai Benois, the famous architect.

E. A. and E. N. Lansere, parents of Serebryakova

Almost all of his children followed in the footsteps of their father: Leonty Nikolayevich also became an architect (and his daughter Nadezhda, who married Iona von Ustinov, became the mother of the famous actor and writer Peter Ustinov), Albert Nikolayevich taught watercolor painting at the Academy of Arts, but became most famous Alexander Nikolayevich is a well-known painter, one of the founders of the World of Art, a renowned theater artist and for some time the head of the Hermitage art gallery.

E. N. Lansere with children. On the left in the arms of the mother - Zina

“Sometimes you look around like this: this relative, this one, but this one probably didn’t draw. Then it turns out that he also painted. And not bad either, ”recalled one of Benoit’s relatives. Ekaterina Nikolaevna herself also drew - her specialty was graphics.

Louis Jules Benois, Serebryakova's great-grandfather, with his wife and children. Third from the left (with a flag) is the artist's grandfather, Nikolai Benois.
Olivier, circa 1816

She and Eugene Lansere had six children - and half of them connected their lives with art: the son Nikolai became, following the example of his grandfather, an architect, and Eugene achieved recognition as a muralist. Zina, the youngest of Lansere's children, grew up in an atmosphere of service to art from early childhood. She was born on December 10, 1884 at the Lansere Neskuchnoye estate, near Kharkov, and her first years passed there. But, unfortunately, in 1886, at the fortieth year of his life, the father of the family died of transient consumption. After burying her husband, Ekaterina Nikolaevna returned with her children to her parents' house, to St. Petersburg.

Alexander Nikolaevich Benois, uncle of the artist. Serebryakova 1953 (left)
Albert Nikolaevich Benois, uncle of the artist. Serebryakova 1924 (right)

A. K. Kavos, great-grandfather of Serebryakova

It is not surprising that the fragile, big-eyed Zina learned to draw almost before she could talk. According to the recollections of relatives, she grew up
closed, shy, "sickly and rather unsociable child, in which she resembled her father and did not at all resemble her mother, nor her brothers and sisters, who all
distinguished by a cheerful and sociable disposition,” wrote Alexandre Benois. She spent almost all her free time drawing - with the help of her brothers and uncles, she mastered the technique of watercolor and oil painting very early, and tirelessly trained all day long, drawing everything that surrounded her - the rooms of the house, relatives, landscapes outside the window, plates with lunch ...

Z.Serebryakova. Portrait of A.N. Benois. 1924

The greatest authority for Zina was Alexander Benois: when he, who discovered
for himself, the work of the almost forgotten Venetsianov, became an ardent propagandist of his manner - his niece also fell in love with this artist. Alexander's works - bright and full of inner joy, peasant landscapes, female images and genre scenes from Venetsianov's paintings - made a deep impression on Zina. Inspired by Benois, Zina wrote a lot in Neskuchny, where she spent every
summer, peasant nature - fields and village houses, peasant women and their children.

In the gymnasium. In the first row, third from the right is Zina Lansere. Late 1890s

1900s Self-portrait

In the autumn of 1902, Zinaida and her mother went to Italy - for several months they wandered through museums and galleries, examined ancient ruins and looked into cathedrals, painted sun-drenched shores and hills overgrown with dense greenery. Returning in the spring of 1903, Zina began studying in the class of Osip Immanuilovich Bran, a fashionable portrait painter: they recalled that Bran, overwhelmed with orders, did not
paid attention to the students, but even watching his work was very valuable.

In the workshop of O. E. Braz. In the second row, second from the left is Zinaida Lansere. Early 1900s

But most of all, Zinaida brought joy for months in her beloved Neskuchny - to draw
she was ready for him endlessly. Alexandre Benois described Neskuchnoye, a favorite corner of the whole family, as follows: in places small, succulent clumps of trees stood out, among which huts with their friendly square windows stood out brightly. Windmills sticking up the hills everywhere gave a peculiar picturesqueness. All this breathed grace ... "

Neskuchnoye estate, Kursk province. A. B. Serebryakov, 1946

<...>There, in Neskuchny, Zinaida met her fate. On the opposite bank of the Muromka River, the Serebryakovs lived on their own farm - the mother of the family, Zinaida Alexandrovna, was the sister of Zina's father. Her children grew up with the children of Lansere, and it is not surprising that Boris Serebryakov and Zina Lansere fell in love with each other as children. They agreed to get married a long time ago, and parents on both sides did not object to the choice of children, but there were other difficulties: Lansere and Benoit traditionally adhered to the Catholic faith - French blood flowed in their veins (the first Benoit fled to Russia from the French Revolution, Lansere's ancestor remained after war of 1812), only slightly diluted with Italian and German, and the Serebryakovs were Orthodox. In addition, Zina and Boris were cousins, and both religions did not approve of such closely related marriages. It took a lot of time and even more trouble with the church authorities for the lovers to get permission to marry.

Z.Serebryakova. Portrait of B.A. Serebryakov. c.1905

Z. E. Serebryakova. Early 1900s

In Paris, Zina was stunned by the variety of the latest trends, art schools, trends and styles, but she herself remained true to realism, although it acquired some modernist features under the influence of the Parisian air: the lines in Serebryakova’s paintings became alive, like those of the Impressionists, they had movement and indescribable joy of the moment. On the advice of Alexander Benois, Zina studied for some time at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere studio - however, to her
to no small disappointment, here little attention was paid directly to training, preferring only to evaluate already finished works. In fact, Serebryakova’s art education ended at the Paris Academy: from now on, she moved along her chosen creative path on her own.

House in Neskuchny. A. B. Serebryakov, 1946

In Neskuchny with children Shura, Zhenya, Tata and Katya, 1914

Zina took care of children, painted a lot, waited for her husband from trips - during one of these expectations, she painted the same self-portrait. “My husband Boris Anatolyevich,” Serebryakova recalled, “was on a business trip to explore the northern region of Siberia, in the taiga ... I decided to wait for his return in order to return to St. Petersburg together. The winter of this year came early, everything was covered with snow - our garden, the fields around - there were snowdrifts everywhere, it was impossible to go out, but it was warm and cozy in the house on the farm. I started to draw myself in the mirror and amused myself to portray every little thing “on the toilet”.

Zinaida Serebryakova
Behind the toilet. Self portrait, 1909
Canvas, oil. 75×65 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

At the end of December 1909, brother Eugene, a member of the World of Art group, wrote to Zinaida with a request to send some work to the upcoming exhibition of the World of Art. Without thinking twice, she sent him a recently completed self-portrait "Behind the toilet." At the exhibition, where the works of Serov, Kustodiev, Vrubel hung, this painting by an unknown artist not only was not lost, but made a splash. Stunned by the skill of his own niece, Alexander Benois enthusiastically wrote: “Serebryakova’s self-portrait is undoubtedly the most pleasant, the most joyful thing ... There is complete immediacy and simplicity: a true artistic temperament, something sonorous, young, laughing, sunny and clear, something absolutely artistic ... What I especially like about this portrait is that there is no "demonism" in it, which has recently become downright street vulgarity. Even a certain sensuality contained in this image is of the most innocent, immediate quality. There is something childish in this side view of the "forest nymph", something playful, cheerful ... And both the face itself and everything in this picture is young and fresh ... There is not a trace of any modernist refinement here . But a simple and even vulgar life situation in the light of youth becomes charming and joyful. On the advice of Valentin Serov, who was also impressed by the skill and unprecedented cheerfulness of the painting, “Behind the Toilet” and two more paintings were acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery.

Z. E. Serebryakova draws, on the left - B. A. Serebryakov with his son Zhenya. 1900s

The success of Serebryakova and her paintings was incredible - it seemed to both the public and critics that
that from now on Serebryakova will deservedly stand in the first glad of Russian painters. “In the art of the artist, with rare force, the main, most wonderful element of creativity is revealed,” critics wrote, “that excitement, joyful, deep and cordial, which creates everything in art and with which only one can truly feel and love the world and life.” She was accepted as a member of the World of Art, invited to galleries and vernissages, but Zinaida shied away from noisy gatherings, preferring the beauty and peace of her native Neskuchny to the bustling Petersburg, and quiet evenings with her family to conversations with critics and fellow workers. She gave birth to her husband two more daughters - Tatyana in 1912 and a year later Katya, who was called the Cat at home.

At work in his workshop in Neskuchny..

And yet these years are considered the heyday of her art: in the early 1910s, Serebryakova created such unforgettable canvases as “The Bather” - a portrait of her sister Catherine, combining classic grandeur and the indescribable lightness of the wind playing in her hair, “Bath”, “ Peasants”, “Sleeping Peasant Woman”, “Whitening of the Canvas”, self-portraits and images of children. In her canvases, the Ukrainian sun is combined with the joyful lightness of the brushstroke, beautiful bodies live in unity with the landscape, and the eyes in the portraits with an almond-shaped cut and a slight slyness subtly resemble the eyes of Serebryakova herself.

Z. Serebryakova. Bather

In 1916, Alexander Benois received an order to paint the Kazansky railway station in Moscow: he invited Yevgeny Lansere, Boris Kustodiev, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and Zinaida Serebryakova to take part in the work. Zinaida got panels on an oriental theme - perhaps the Asian flavor was especially close to her, because her beloved Boris at that time led a survey party at the construction of a railway in South-Eastern Siberia. Unfortunately, this order was withdrawn, and Serebryakova's sketches - embodied in beautiful female images - India, Japan, Siam and Turkey - remained unrealized.

Family on a farm in Neskuchny. Center in Panama - W. E. 1900s

Z.Serebryakova. Self-portrait in a white blouse. 1922

In Kharkov, they found themselves almost without funds. But even then, Zina continued to draw - however, due to lack of funds, instead of her favorite oil paints, she had to take charcoal and a pencil. Fortunately, Zina managed to get a job at the local Archaeological Museum, sketching exhibits for catalogs. But the connection with her husband was lost - for several months Zina was looking for him throughout Russia.

“Not a line from Boris, it’s so scary that I’m completely crazy,” she wrote to her brother. At the beginning of 1919, she finally met her husband, miraculously reaching Moscow for such an occasion, and even persuaded Boris to go to Kharkov to see the children for a couple of days. On the way back, he had a heart attack, he decided to return, moved to a military train - and there he contracted typhus. He barely managed to get to the family and died in the arms of his wife. Ironically, he, like Zinaida’s father, was only thirty-nine years old ... Ekaterina Nikolaevna Lansere wrote about this day to one of her sons: “It was terrible, the agony lasted five minutes: before that, he spoke and no one thought that he'll be gone in five minutes. You can imagine, my dear, what kind of grief it was - the weeping, sobbing of the children, the boys were inconsolable (Katyusha did not understand). Zinok cried little, but did not leave Borechka ... "

Z.Serebryakova. Portrait of B.A. Serebryakov. 1913

Zinaida, faithful to the memory of her husband, will never marry again, fall in love, and will not allow herself any hobbies. She knew how to love, but only once and for life. She had four children and an elderly mother in her arms, but there was no longer any joy or love. “... It always seemed to me,” she wrote to a friend, “that being loved and being in love is happiness, I was always like a child, not noticing life around, and was happy, although even then I knew sadness and tears ... It is so sad to realize that life is already behind us, that time is running, and there is nothing more than loneliness, old age and longing ahead, and there is still so much tenderness, feelings in the soul. ”Serebryakova expressed her feelings of those difficult days in one of the most tragic paintings "House of Cards", an artistic metaphor of that sad time: four children dressed in mourning build a house of cards, fragile as life itself.

Z.Serebryakova. "House of cards"

"Benois House" in St. Petersburg on Nikolskaya, 15 (now Glinka Street)

Books and furniture were looted, the old family house was compacted, dividing the huge apartment into many small apartments. However, fortunately, actors were brought in to Benois - and the creative atmosphere, which was so appreciated by the guests of the house, was preserved. Former friends, brothers, connoisseurs and collectors came to visit Zina - they were attracted by her passion for art, and the inexpressible comfort that she knew how to create around herself literally from nothing, and her own beauty - both external and internal, “I I still will not forget what a strong impression her beautiful radiant eyes made on me,” recalled a colleague of the artist Galina Teslenko. - Despite the great grief ... and insurmountable difficulties of life - four children and a mother! - she looked much younger than her years, and her face was striking in the freshness of colors. The deep inner life that she lived created such an external charm that there was no way to resist.

In the St. Petersburg apartment of A.N. Benoit. Z.E. Serebryakova, her mother Ekaterina Nikolaevna, sister Maria Evgenievna and brother Nikolai Evgenievich

Z.Serebryakova. Self-portrait with daughters. 1921

“I was struck by the beauty of all the children of Zinaida Evgenievna,” wrote Galina Teslenko. — Each in his own way. The youngest, Katenka - the rest of the children called her the Cat - is a fragile porcelain figurine with golden hair, a delicate face of delightful coloring. The second, Tata, older than Katenka, struck me with her dark maternal eyes, alive, shining, joyful, eager to do something right now, at this moment. She was brown-haired and also with magnificent complexion. Katya at that time was about seven years old, Tate about eight. The first impression was fully justified. Tata turned out to be a lively, playful girl, Katya was more quiet, calm. The sons of Zinaida Evgenievna were not alike: Zhenya was blond with blue eyes, with a beautiful profile, and Shurik was brown-haired with dark hair, too gentle and affectionate for a boy.

Z.Serebryakova. So Binka (Zhenya Serebryakov) fell asleep. 1908

The Serebryakovs lived very hard: there were few orders, and they were poorly paid. As one of her friends wrote, "Collectors for free, for food and worn things, took her works in abundance." And Galina Teslenko recalled: “Financially, Serebryakov's life was difficult, very difficult. As before, potato peel cutlets were a delicacy for lunch.” When her daughter Tatyana became interested in ballet and was even able to enter a choreographic school, Zinaida shared her love for dancing - she was allowed to be present backstage at the Mariinsky Theater on the days of performances, and she enthusiastically painted ballerinas, scenes from performances, everyday sketches of backstage life.

Z.Serebryakova. Portrait of Alexander's son. 1925

Z.Serebryakova. Portrait of E.N. Lansere. Mother. 1912

“I was twelve years old when my mother left for Paris,” Tatyana Serebryakova recalled many years later. - The steamer going to Stetin was moored at the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge. Mom was already on board ... I almost fell into the water, my friends picked me up. Mom thought that she was leaving for a while, but my despair was boundless, I seemed to feel that I was parting with my mother for a long time, for decades ... "And so it happened: Zinaida Serebryakova was able to return to her homeland only for a short time, after three decades.

House in Paris on the street. Campagne-Premier, 31 The last workshop of Z.E. Serebryakova (middle window on the top floor)

At first, Serebryakova managed to get an order for a large decorative panel in Paris, but then things did not go so well. She painted a lot of portraits and even gained a certain fame, which, however, did not bring almost any income. “Impractical, makes many portraits for free for a promise to advertise, but everyone, getting wonderful things, forgets about her, and they don’t lift a finger on a finger,” Konstantin Somov wrote about her. Although Zinaida was almost French by blood, she almost did not communicate with any of the locals in Paris - shy and reserved by nature, she painfully felt like a stranger in France. Her circle of friends was made up of a few emigrants she knew from Petrograd, whom she met at exhibitions or at Alexander Benois - he left the USSR in 1926, he also intended to return someday, but in the end he remained abroad.

[b]
Workshop in Paris on the Rue Blanche. Z.E.Serebryakova

From homesickness, for the children left there, only travels saved her, during which she painted a lot: first she traveled around Brittany, then visited Switzerland, and in 1928, with the help of Baron Brower, who greatly appreciated her work, she was able to go to North Africa.

A trip to Morocco seemed to resurrect Serebriakova: a riot of colors, the sun, the long-forgotten joy of life and the lightness of being returned to her paintings. Many of the Moroccan works were later exhibited - the press spoke of them very favorably, calling Serebryakova "a master of European significance", "one of the most remarkable Russian artists of the era", but the exhibition did not have much resonance. At that time, there was a completely different art in fashion, and the few reviews of Serebryakova's drawings were drowned in an avalanche of articles about abstract art, surrealism and other modernist trends in painting. Her paintings seemed outdated, out of date, and gradually the artist herself began to feel unnecessary, outdated...

Z.Serebryakova. Morocco. Marrakesh

In the end, the relatives managed to send their son Shura to her: as soon as he arrived, the young man rushed to help his mother. He painted scenery for film studios, designed exhibitions, illustrated books, and created sketches of interiors. Over time, he grew into a fine artist whose watercolors preserved the magical look of pre-war Paris.

“He draws all day long, tirelessly,” wrote Zinaida. “He is often dissatisfied with his things and terribly annoyed, and then he and Katyusha clash over trifles and terribly upset me with harsh characters (it’s true, they both went to me, and not to Borechka!”). Katya managed to be transported to Paris in 1928 with the help of one of the grateful clients: Zinaida did not see the rest of the children for many years.

Z.Serebryakova. Collioure. Katya on the terrace. 1930

Drawing remained for Zinaida Serebryakova the only occupation, the main entertainment and way of life. Together with her daughter, they went to do sketches in the Louvre, then to sketches in the Bois de Boulogne, but Zinaida could not help but feel that she was moving further and further away from the creative life that always seemed to be seething in Paris. “I remember my hopes,” plans" of youth - how much I wanted to do, how much was planned, and so nothing came of it - life broke down in its prime, ”she wrote to her mother. She really literally physically felt that her whole life was crumbling like a house of cards - part there, part here, and neither to collect nor correct ...

Early 20s

Serebryakova wholeheartedly strove to return to Russia - but for some reason, long efforts could not be crowned with success. “If you knew, dear Uncle Shura,” she wrote to Alexandre Benois, “how I dream and want to leave in order to somehow change this life, where every day there is only acute concern for food (always insufficient and bad) and where my the salary is so insignificant that it is not enough for the most necessary things. Orders for portraits are terribly rare and are paid for with pennies, eaten up before the portrait is ready.

Z. Serebryakova. Self-portrait. 1938

Before the war, she did not have time, and after that she already felt too old, tired, sick ... She was visited by Soviet artists who came to Paris - Sergei Gerasimov, Dementy Shmarinov - were called in the USSR, but after so many years, she could not decide, she was afraid no one needs to be there.

“Maybe I should come back? she wrote to her daughter. “But who will need me there?” You, dear Tatusik, can't sit on your neck. And where to live there? Everywhere I will be superfluous, and even with drawing, folders ... "

Z. E. Serebryakova in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. 1900s

“Thank you for writing and that you want to start “actively” collecting documents, etc. to visit us! she replied. “It will be such a great joy for us that I’m even afraid to believe in such happiness ... When I left on August 24, 1924, I thought that in a few months I would see all my beloved ones - my grandmother and children, but my whole life passed away in anticipation, in some annoyance that gnawed at my heart, and in reproach to myself that I parted with you ... "

In 1960, they were finally able to see each other: the grown-up Tatyana and the aged Zinaida Evgenievna. “Mom never liked acting,” Tatyana recalled, “I couldn’t imagine how she looks now, and was delighted to see that she had strangely changed little. She remained true to herself not only in her beliefs in art, but also in appearance. The same bangs, the same black bow at the back, and a jacket with a skirt, and a blue robe and hands, from which came some familiar smell of oil paints from childhood.

Through the efforts of Tatyana Borisovna, in 1965, an exhibition of Zinaida Serebryakova was organized in the Soviet Union - more than a hundred works by the artist, created in exile. The exhibition was an unprecedented success, and it was repeated in Kyiv and Leningrad.

Z. E. Serebryakova (center) in the workshop on Campagne-Premier street with children and S. K. Artsybushev. 1960

She died on September 19, 1967, after suffering a stroke. She was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois: on the day of the funeral it was pouring rain, mourning the great Russian artist, who crumbled like a house of cards, far from her homeland...

Zinaida Serebryakova is a Russian artist from the creative dynasty of Benois-Lancere-Serebryakovs. She studied painting at the school of Maria Tenisheva, at the studio of Ossip Braz, and at the Grand-Chomier Academy in Paris. Serebryakova became one of the first women whom the Academy of Arts nominated for the title of academician of painting.

"The Most Joyful Thing"

Zinaida Serebryakova (nee Lansere) was born in 1884 in the Neskuchnoye estate near Kharkov, she was the youngest child of six children. Her mother, Catherine Lansere, was a graphic artist and sister of Alexandre Benois. Father - sculptor Eugene Lansere - died of tuberculosis when Zinaida was one and a half years old.

Together with her children, Ekaterina Lansere moved to St. Petersburg - to her father, the architect Nikolai Benois. Everyone in the family was engaged in creativity, often visited exhibitions and read rare books on art. Zinaida Serebryakova began to draw from a young age. In 1900 she graduated from the gymnasium and entered the art school of Princess Maria Tenisheva - in those years Ilya Repin taught here. However, the future artist studied for only a month: she went to Italy to get acquainted with classical art. Returning to St. Petersburg, Serebryakova studied painting in the workshop of Osip Braz.

During these years, the Lansere family visited Neskuchnoye for the first time after a long life in St. Petersburg. Zinaida Serebryakova, accustomed to the strict aristocratic views of St. Petersburg, was shocked by the riot of southern nature and picturesque rural landscapes. She made sketches everywhere: in the garden, in the field, she even wrote views from the window. Here the artist met her future husband - her cousin Boris Serebryakov.

After the wedding, the newlyweds left for Paris - there Serebryakova studied at the Grand Chaumier Art Academy. After returning, the couple settled in St. Petersburg. However, they often traveled to Neskuchnoe, where the artist spent all her time at the easel: she painted spring meadows and flowering gardens, peasant children and her newborn son. In total, four children were born in the family - two sons and two daughters.

Zinaida Serebryakova. Before the storm (Selo Neskuchnoe). 1911. GRM

Zinaida Serebryakova. Orchard in bloom. 1908. Private collection

Zinaida Serebryakova. Orchard. 1908-1909. timing

In 1909, Zinaida Serebryakova painted a self-portrait "Behind the Toilet". A year later, he and 12 more paintings - portraits of acquaintances, "peasant" sketches and landscapes - participated in the exhibition "World of Art". Paintings by Serebryakova hung next to works by Valentin Serov, Boris Kustodiev, Mikhail Vrubel. Three of them - "Behind the toilet", "Green in autumn" and "Young woman (Maria Zhegulina)") were acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery. Serebryakova was elected a member of the "World of Art".

“Now she has amazed the Russian public with such a wonderful gift, such a “smile in her mouth”, that one cannot help but thank her. Serebryakova's self-portrait is undoubtedly the most pleasant, the most joyful thing ... Here is complete immediacy and simplicity, a true artistic temperament, something resonant, young, laughing, sunny and clear, something absolutely artistic.
Alexander Benois

Zinaida Serebryakova. Behind the toilet. Self-portrait. 1909. State Tretyakov Gallery

Zinaida Serebryakova. Greenery in autumn. 1908. State Tretyakov Gallery

Zinaida Serebryakova. Molodukha (Maria Zhegulina). 1909. State Tretyakov Gallery

Almost academician of painting

In the following years, Zinaida Serebryakova continued to paint - landscapes of Neskuchny, portraits of peasant women, relatives and herself - “Self-portrait in a Pierrot costume”, “Girl with a Candle”. In 1916, Alexandre Benois invited her to his "team" when he was assigned to paint the Kazansky railway station in Moscow. The building was also decorated by Boris Kustodiev, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and Ekaterina Lansere. Zinaida Serebryakova chose an oriental theme. She portrayed the countries of Asia - India and Japan, Turkey and Siam - as beautiful young women.

Zinaida Serebryakova. Canvas bleaching. 1917. State Tretyakov Gallery

Zinaida Serebryakova. Girl with a candle (Self-portrait). 1911. GRM

Zinaida Serebryakova. At breakfast (Dinner) 1914. State Tretyakov Gallery

In 1917, the Council of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts nominated Zinaida Serebryakova for the title of academician of painting. However, the revolution prevented him from getting it. The coup found the artist with her children and mother in Neskuchny. It was not safe to stay on the estate. As soon as the family moved to Kharkov, the estate was looted and burned. The artist got a job at the Kharkov Archaeological Museum, where she sketched exhibits for the catalog. A small salary helped the family to survive.

In 1919, Boris Serebryakov made his way to the family. However, the couple did not stay together for long: the artist's husband suddenly died of typhus.

“It always seemed to me that being loved and being in love is happiness, I was always like a child, not noticing the life around, and was happy, although even then I knew sadness and tears ... It’s so sad to realize that life is already behind, that time is running, and there is nothing more than loneliness, old age and longing ahead, but there is still so much tenderness and feeling in the soul.
Zinaida Serebryakova

In January 1920, the Serebryakovs moved to St. Petersburg, to the apartment of Nikolai Benois, which, after compaction, became a communal apartment. Zinaida Serebryakova earned money mainly by painting portraits, selling old canvases. She recalled: “I sew all day long... I lengthen Katyusha’s dress, mend linen... I prepare oil paints myself - I grind powders with poppy oil... We still live by some kind of miracle”.

Soon, one of Serebryakova's daughters began to study ballet - this is how fresh theatrical subjects appeared in the artist's works. She spent a lot of time behind the scenes of the Mariinsky Theater, took home props for performances, invited ballerinas to her place, who willingly posed for canvases.

Zinaida Serebryakova. In the ballet dressing room (Big ballerinas). 1922. Private collection

Zinaida Serebryakova. In the ballet room. Ballet Swan Lake". 1922. GRM

Zinaida Serebryakova. Sylph girls (Ballet "Chopiniana"). 1924. State Tretyakov Gallery

Portraits for the promise to advertise

In 1924, Zinaida Serebryakova participated in an American charity exhibition for Russian artists. Her paintings were a great success, several canvases were immediately bought. In the same year, Serebryakova, with the support of her uncle Alexander Benois, left for Paris. The artist planned to work a little in France and return to the USSR. However, this turned out to be impossible: she still wrote a lot and received very little money for it. Serebryakova sent all the fees to Russia - to mothers and children.

Nikolai Somov, artist

Two children - Alexander and Catherine - with the support of the Red Cross and relatives managed to be sent to Paris in 1925 and 1928. And Eugene and Tatyana remained in the USSR.

Once Zinaida Serebryakova painted family portraits for a Belgian entrepreneur. She received a large fee: enough money to travel with children to Morocco. The country delighted the artist. Serebryakova wrote: “I was amazed by everything here to the extreme. And costumes of the most diverse colors, and all human races mixed here - Negroes, Arabs, Mongols, Jews (completely biblical). I am so stupefied by the novelty of impressions that I can’t figure out what and how to draw.”. After the trip, new still lifes, urban landscapes and portraits of Moroccan women appeared from under the brush of Serebryakova - bright and juicy.

Zinaida Serebryakova. A woman opening her veil. 1928. Kaluga Regional Art Museum

Zinaida Serebryakova. View from the terrace to the Atlas Mountains. Marrakesh. Morocco. 1928. Kaluga Regional Art Museum

Zinaida Serebryakova. Young Moroccan woman sitting. 1928. Private collection

In the 1930s, several solo exhibitions of Serebryakova were held in Paris, but very few were sold. In 1933, her mother died of starvation, and Serebryakova decided to go to Russia with her children. Circumstances again interfered with her: at first, the paperwork was delayed, then the Second World War began. The artist managed to see her eldest daughter only 36 years after the separation - in 1960, Tatyana Serebryakova was able to go to her mother in Paris.

In the mid-60s, an exhibition of paintings by Zinaida Serebryakova was held in Moscow. But the artist could not come: at that time she was already 80 years old. Two years later, Zinaida Serebryakova passed away. She was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.

All the children of Zinaida Serebryakova became artists. The eldest - Eugene - worked as an architect-restorer. "Parisian" children painted in the rare genre of watercolor or gouache miniatures in the tradition of the early 19th century. Alexander painted to order types of estates, including Russian ones - he restored their architectural appearance from memory. Catherine, who lived to be 101 years old, also painted estates, palace interiors, and created custom building models. Tatyana worked as a theater artist at the Moscow Art Theater.

In 2015, one of the paintings by Zinaida Serebryakova was sold at Sothbey's for £3,845,000, which is about $6,000,000. The Sleeping Girl has become her most expensive painting to date.

The blue express of Zinaida Serebryakova's creativity. Zinaida Serebryakova

It is known that with the money received for its sale, the artist went to France, from where she never returned.