Lebedev, Klavdii Vasilevich

Born Oct. 16 (28), 1852; died Sept. 21 (Oct. 4), 1916, in Moscow. Russian painter.

Lebedev studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1875 to 1881, becoming an instructor there in 1890. A professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts between 1894 and 1898, he was made a member there in 1906. He joined the peredvizhniki (the “wanderers”—a progressive art movement) in 1891.

Lebedev executed genre paintings that typified the peredvizhniki style of the 1890’s and were marked by their depth of observation (To Their Son, 1894; In the Homeland, 1897—both in the Tret’iakov Gallery). He also painted historical pictures devoted to everyday life in boyar-dominated Rus’ (The Boyar Wedding, 1883; Report to the Boyar, 1904—both in the Tret’iakov Gallery), which were superficial in terms of content. Lebedev was also an illustrator.