Painter. He is recognized as a Ukrainian-born Russian painter, with Finnish Passport, who is considered the most prominent figure of nineteenth-century Russian realism. Born one of six children of a peasant, as a young boy, he earned money by painting portraits and religious icons. After receiving first place in local art competitions, he earned his tuition to the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, where he studied from 1864 to 1871. His graduation work, "The Resurrection of Jairus' Daughter," received the Gold Medal and a six-year scholarship, which included a three-year scholarship to travel abroad. After traveling through Europe and settling in Paris for exhibitions of his work, he was exposed to Impressionism and En plein air, before returning to Russia. In 1878 he became a member of the Itinerants or "Wanderers", who rebelled against the academic formalism of the official Academy, and was a constant participant in their exhibitions. He served as a professor, as head of the studio affiliated with the Petersburg Academy of Arts, and as director of the Academy in 1898 to 1899. As an excellent painter of landscapes, genre scenes, and portraits, he was additionally an accomplished master of drawing, as well as lithographs. He painted over 300 portraits, with a profound psychological character, of the most notable men of the Russian Empire of his day. In 1900, during a trip to Paris, he met Natalia Nordman, the "love of his life"; they married, had three children, and he moved from Russia to her home, "Penaty," in Kuokkala, which was then in Finland. This estate soon became an established center of Russian artistic and literary activity in the early twentieth century. In 1914 his wife died while receiving treatment for tuberculosis in Switzerland. Finland broke away from Russia in 1917 and at that point, he was limited in traveling to Russia for any exhibits his work. In his later years, he was handicapped by the atrophy of his right hand, thus could not produce works of the same quality as those which brought him fame. Although he trained himself to paint with his left hand, he lived his last years under a constant financial strain. Since the artist did not accept the politics of the Revolution of 1917, he did not want to return to Russia, even though in 1926 a delegation sent by the Ministry of Education of the Soviet Union helped him financially and tried to entice him to return. To acknowledge and commemorate Repin's artistic achievement, in 1948 Kuokkala was renamed Repino. Eventually, his Finnish home "Penaty" was annexed into the Soviet Union. As a close friend of Russian author, Leo Tolstoy, he painted at least five portraits of Tolstoy. Repin's most famous paintings are "Ivan the Terrible Killing his Son" in 1885, "Burlaks on the Volga" in 1873, and "The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan of Turkey" from 1878 to 1891. His home is now a museum and a UNESCO World Heritage site.