Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture

(full name, I. E. Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture), the oldest higher educational art institution in the USSR. Founded in 1757 in St. Petersburg as the School of Education of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, it was reorganized in 1894 as the Higher School of Art. After the October Revolution of 1917, it became the State Free Art Shops, and in 1926, the Higher Art and Technical Institute. Between 1932 and 1944 the the art institute was reorganized as the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture (becoming a part of the Russian Academy of Arts in 1933). Since 1944 the name of the institute has been the I. E. Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. It has been maintained by the Academy of Arts of the USSR since 1947.

Students of the institution before the October Revolution of 1917 included A. P. Losenko, V. I. Bazhenov, F. I. Shubin, A. A. Ivanov, O. A. Kiprenskii, K. P. Briullov, I. N. Kramskoi, P. P. Chistiakov, I. E. Repin, V. I. Surikov, I. I. Shishkin, M. M. Antokol’skii, I. K. Aivazovskii, V. M. Vasnetsov, V. A. Serov, and N. K. Rerikh. During Soviet times, many Soviet masters of the representational arts and architecture attended the institute, including B. M. Kustodiev, M. V. Nesterov, I. I. Brodskii, I. E. Grabar’, A. A. Rylov, I. A. Fomin, V. A. Shchuko, A. V. Shchusev, L. V. Rudnev, S. T. Konenkov, E. F. Belashova, M. G. Manizer, V. V. Lishev, E. V. Vuchetich, VI. M. Oreshnikov, Iu. M. Neprintsev, V. B. Pinchuk, A. F. Pakhomov, V. A. Serov, I. A. Serebrianyi, A. A. Myl’nikov, E. E. Moiseenko, and M. K. Anikushin.

In 1973 the institute had departments of painting, graphic arts, sculpture, and architecture, as well as art theory and history (with a correspondence school). There are workshops of easel painting, set design, mural painting, and restoration. The institute has a graduate school and 11 subdepartments. It also maintains a secondary school of art.

In the 1972–73 academic year, the I. E. Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture had an enrollment of approximately 1,600 students. The staff included more than 150 instructors, including 21 professors and doctors of sciences, 80 docents and candidates of sciences, eight members of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, and seven People’s Artists of the USSR. The institute has been granted the right to accept dissertations submitted for doctoral and candidate degrees. More than 11,000 artists, architects, art theorists, and art historians have been trained at the institute since its founding. The institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1957.