Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva (russian: Анна Петровна Остроумова-Лебедева, 17 May 1871 — 5 May 1955) was a Russian and Soviet artist most notable for her

watercolor painting Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

. She was also one of the pioneers of the

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...

technique in Russia.

Biography

She was born as Anna Ostroumova in Saint Petersburg. In 1905, she married the chemist

Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev Sergei Vasilievich Lebedev (russian: Сергей Васильевич Лебедев; 13 July 1874 – 2 May 1934) was a Russian/Soviet chemist and the inventor of polybutadiene synthetic rubber, the first commercially viable and mass-produced ...

. She studied painting at the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing, and subsequently at the

Imperial Academy of Arts The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name ''Academy of the T ...

under Ilya Repin. The Academy only started to accept women in 1892, and Ostroumova was one of the first women alumni. In 1898 and 1899 she studied in Paris at the Académie Colarossi, and also with

James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

at the Académie Carmen. In 1900, Ostroumova graduated from the Academy, specializing on graphics, and at the same year joined the

Mir iskusstva ''Mir iskusstva'' ( rus, «Мир искусства», p=ˈmʲir ɪˈskustvə, ''World of Art'') was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize Eur ...

art group in Saint Petersburg. In 1901, she produced the first series of woodcuts with Saint Petersburg cityscapes, ordered by

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...

. In the 1900s—1910s she extensively travelled around Europe and also worked as a book illustrator. Since 1934, she worked as a professor in the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture. Ostroumova-Lebedeva survived the Siege of Leningrad,Leningrad Album
csglasgow.org. Retrieved 18 April 2019. but sometime after that became blind. She died in 1955 in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. The main topic of her graphic works, both woodcuts and watercolors, were cityscapes of Saint Petersburg. She was also interested in European cityscapes, resulting from her travels in Europe.

Selected paintings

Villa Borghese by Ostroumova-Lebedeva (1904).jpg, "

Villa Borghese Villa Borghese or Villa Borghese Pinciana ('Borghese family{{!Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill') is the villa built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio (and, after his death, finished by his assistant Giovanni Vasanzio), developing sketches by Scip ...

", 1904 Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva Punkaharju 1908.jpg, "Two Islands and a birch", 1908 Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva In Finland 1910.jpg, "In

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

", 1910

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Anna 20th-century Russian painters Soviet painters 1871 births 1955 deaths 20th-century Russian women artists Blind artists Académie Colarossi alumni Académie Carmen alumni Burials at Tikhvin Cemetery Imperial Academy of Arts alumni