Arkhip Kuindzhi

Who was Arkhip Kuindzhi?

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was a Russian landscape painter.

Arkhip Kuindzhi was born in January 1841 in Mariupol, but he spent his youth in the city of Taganrog. He grew up in a poor family, and his father was a Greek shoemaker Ivan Khristoforovich Kuindzhi. Arkhip was six years old when he lost his parents, so that he was forced to make his living, working at the church building site, grazing domestic animals, and working at the corn merchant's shop. During the five years, from 1860 to 1865, Arkhip Kuindzhi worked as retoucher in the photo studio of Isakovich in Taganrog. Kuindzhi tried to open his own photographer's studio, but without success. After that Kuindzhi left Taganrog for Saint Petersburg.

He studied painting mainly independently and in St.Petersburg Academy of arts. He was co-partner of mobile art exhibitions