Alexander Hermann Beggrow

Born: 1841, St Petersburg
Died: 1914, Gatchina

Painter, draughtsman, engraver. Son of Carl Joachim Beggrow. Born in St Petersburg (1841), where he studied at the Nicholas College of Engineering and the Naval Academy of Engineering and Artillery (1853–63) and attended the Academy Fridays (1857–62). Joined the Baltic Fleet (1863) and accompanied Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovich on his voyage round the world (1871–72). Studied landscape painting under Baron Mikhail Konstantinovich Clodt von Jürgensburg at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1870). Awarded a minor silver medal (1873). Travelled to Paris (1874), where he studied under Alexei Bogolyubov and Léon Bonnat (1874–75) and visited Normandy, Piedmont, Venice and Holland (1874–75). Returned to St Petersburg (1875), where he was employed by the Russian naval ministry (from 1878). Member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (from 1876) and the Mussar Mondays (from 1881), founding member of the Association d’entraide et de bienfaisance des artistes russes à Paris (1877) and the Society of Russian Watercolourists (1885), full member of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (from 1885). Sailed from Kronstadt to Greece and Turkey (1879) and lived and worked in France (1884–85). Settled in Gatchina (1892), where he designed his own house and garden at 33 Alexandrovskaya (now Volodarsky) Street. Academician of painting (1899), honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1912). Forced by illness to give up painting (1912). Committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart in Gatchina and buried in the Lutheran section of Gatchina Cemetery (1914). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1873). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1873, 1881), Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1874–1913), Association d’entraide et de bienfaisance des artistes russes à Paris (1880–83), Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1881, 1882), Society of Russian Watercolourists (1885–97), Pan-Russian Exhibitions in Moscow (1882) and Nizhny Novgorod (1896), Weltausstellung in Vienna (1873) and the Exposition Universelle in Paris (1878, 1900).

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