Aleksei Alekseevich Kharlamov (1840 - 1925)

Aleksei Alekseevich Kharlamov

Aleksei Alekseevich Kharlamov (russian: Алексей Алексеевич Харламов) was a Russian portrait painter, academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Aleksei was born into a serf's family, which after ten years gained freedom and moved to St. Petersburg. In 1854, the talented boy entered the Imperial Academy of Arts and during the years of study received all the existing academic awards. As an encouragement, the academy sent him to Paris, on the way he visited museums in Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy and Spain, Holland and Belgium. For several years Kharlamov lived in Paris, sending his works for exhibitions in Russia, and in France his touching portraits of girls were a great success.

Since 1872 Kharlamov is a member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, from 1874 - academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts. In the same year, the artist met Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, who predicted a great future for Kharlamov. It was thanks to Turgenev that the artist literally in a year made a brilliant career in Paris. In the fall of 1875, Kharlamov returned to Russia, but a year later he left again for Paris, already forever. His studio in Paris quickly enough turned into a fashionable art atelier. Kharlamov was one of the founders of the Society of Mutual Assistance and Charity of Russian artists in Paris (Society of Russian artists named after I.S. Turgenev, 1877) and later its chairman.

In addition to charming female heads, Aleksei Kharlamov is famous for his paintings "The Return of the Prodigal Son" (1868), "Grandmother and Granddaughter" (1869), "Mordovian Girl" (1872), "Poor Musician" (1875), "Portrait of the writer I.S. Turgenev" (1875), "Portrait of E.A. Tretyakova" (1875), "Gypsy" (1876), "Portrait of Mrs. Viardot" (1878) and others. (1878) and others.