Ilia Semenovich Ostroukhov

Born July 20 (Aug. 1), 1858, in Moscow; died there July 8, 1929. Russian painter. Prominent art figure.

Ostroukhov studied under A. A. Kiselev, I. E. Repin, and P. P. Chistiakov. He became a peredvizhnik (a member of the “wanderers,” a progressive art movement) in 1891 and a member of the Union of Russian Artists in 1903. In 1906 he became a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Art.

Ostroukhov’s best works are his landscapes of Central Russia (Golden Autumn, 1886–87, First Verdure, 1887–88; both in the Tret’iakov Gallery). His most important painting is the landscape Siverko (1890; Tret’iakov Gallery). Broadly generalized in its imagery, it is a dynamic, powerful work, close in emotional composition to the “mood” landscapes of I. I. Levitan.

A friend and adviser of P. M. Tret’iakov, Ostroukhov was a member of the advisory board of the Tret’iakov Gallery from 1898 to 1903 and the gallery’s de facto director; between 1905 and 1913 he was the gallery’s trustee. He assembled his own important collection of Russian icons and contemporary paintings. In 1918 the collection was nationalized, Ostroukhov remaining its curator. After his death, it was transferred to the Tret’iakov Gallery.