Pelevin Ivan

Conversation oil on canvas, 1890

Pelevin Ivan Andreevich (1840-1917) – Russian painter and mosaic artist, artist of everyday genre, author of paintings on subjects from Russian history. Born in 1840. He studied since 1856 at the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1861, Pelevin received a small silver medal for an etude from nature. He graduated from the course of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1862 with the assignment of the title of extra-class artist, in 1864 Pelevin received the title of class artist of the third degree for the paintings “Seamstress” and “Reading the newspaper.”

From 1868 to 1874 he studied at the mosaic department of the Academy. In 1869, Ivan Andreevich Pelevin was awarded the title of Academician of Genre Painting for the paintings “Young Mother”, “Village Seamstress”, “Children’s Breakfast”, “Village Pestun”, “Two Enemies” and “Girl’s Study”. In 1874, Ivan Andreevich Pelevin moved to Vilna. In 1874-1884 he served under the Governor-General of Vilnius, Kovensky and Grodno. During these years, the artist tried his hand at historical painting and painted: “John the Terrible in the cell of St. Nicholas the Fool in Pskov” and “Boyar Troekurov reads to Princess Sophia a decree about her imprisonment in a monastery”, but soon returned to depicting scenes of rural life, as more peculiar to his talent.

In contrast to most other Russian genre writers, Pelevin worked in the lyrical everyday genre, in his paintings the artist did not represent the sad or dark sides of this life, but its encouraging manifestations, sometimes unnecessarily embellished with sentimentality and idyll. Pelevin wrote the ordinary Russian reality, he loved the peasant theme very much and depicted it in his paintings with great knowledge of life and sympathy, and he especially liked to depict scenes with peasant children.

Starting from the 1860s, the painter constantly took part in the exhibitions of the Academy of Arts. Pelevin was one of the most prolific genre painters of the second half of the 19th century in Russian realistic painting. Created over a hundred works. Pelevin’s paintings didn’t have a public resonance, but among his contemporaries he was popular as an artist of the genre who wrote pleasant small-format paintings. Known as a mosaic artist, performed works in St. Isaac’s Cathedral (the figure of Judas in the image of The Last Supper, 1869-1870) in St. Petersburg.

The artworks are presented in the State Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, in the Kursk Regional Art Gallery named after A.A. Deineki, in the Tyumen Museum of Fine Arts, in other art museum collections, galleries and private collections.

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