Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky, 1871-1944

Descended from Polish nobility, Stanislav Zhukovsky became one of Russia’s most prominent landscape artists. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Vasily Polenov, Valentin Serov and Isaac Levitan.

Zhukovsky is considered the most famous successor of Levitan’s lyrical landscape. He became interested in Impressionism in the mid-1900s, and under its influence developed his own style. The offered lot depicts one of the artist’s favourite themes – the estate in autumn. His canvases convey different moods - from the mild sadness of a cloudy grey day to the uplifting, yet nostalgic, feeling of a bright and sunny autumn afternoon as seen here. Zhukovsky’s paintings became extremely popular, and were reproduced in different media. Indeed, a close-up of the pavilion depicted in Autumn in Naidionov Park, was printed on postcards in the 1920s and 1930s.  Contemporaries admired Zhukovsky’s talent, as well as his innate skills as a colourist, believing that he could even paint the wind and his paintings were sought after by Russia's great art patrons, Pavel Tretyakov and Nikolai Ryabushinsky. His works are now kept in important public collections in Russia, including the Tretyakov Gallery and the State Russian Museum.