Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova, 1884-1967

Zinaida Serebriakova was a member of Mir Iskusstva or World of Art exhibiting group which formed in St. Petersburg in 1898 and remained active until 1924. She joined the group in its second wave of activity around 1910. It was at this time that she painted her most famous work, a self-portrait "In front of the Mirror", (State Tretyakov Gallery) a seductive painting which depicts the self-assured, young artist at her toilette.

As with other members of the group, she was not interested in contemporary French Impressionism, but looked towards academic painting for inspiration. Her drawings display her enormous natural talent at depicting form but also her firm assimilation and respect for models of the past and the virtues of good draughtmanship. People – most often women – in her paintings have elongated limbs, are of masculine proportions and faces are idealised. In her portraits she finds a balance between likeness and beauty.

Her preferred subjects were those drawn from the life around her. Russian peasant women working in the fields, dancers at the Kirov, women washing themselves in the bathhouse and later, when travelling in North Africa, the locals engaged in daily chores on the streets of Morocco.

After the tragic early death of her husband and a deterioration of the political situation, she left Russia and settled in Paris. Here she earned money by painting portraits of the nobility, many of them Russian emigrees who had fled after the revolution. These official portraits are among the least inspiring of her oeuvre. However, she continued to paint subjects that inspired her, in particular portraits of her children which are among the most touching and original works she produced.

Throughout the 30s and 40s she painted Katya several times. Intimate moments of her daughter sleeping are captured, as well as other, more formal portraits, such as the offered lot. Even through the carefully planned composition and pose of Katya, seated in a wicker chair with her arms crossed, we get a glimpse of authentic expression hinting at the complex but affectionate relationship between mother and daughter.