Arkady Rylov

Painter, draughtsman, teacher. Brought up in Vyatka (now Kirov) by his stepfather after his father suffered a nervous breakdown. Studied at the Baron Stieglitz Central School of Technical Drawing (1888–91) and under Arkhip Kuinji at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1894–97). Member of the New Society of Artists (1905), Union of Russian Artists (1911) and the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (1925); founding member (1909) and chairman (1925–30) of the Arkhip Kuinji Society. Life member of the Salon d’Automne (1906), academician of painting (1915). Taught at the School of Drawing of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (1902–17) and the State Free Art Studios/VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN (1918–29, professor from 1921). Painted history pictures (1890s), landscapes (from 1900s) and animal works (from 1910s). Opened a small nature reserve at his studio, where he kept squirrels, rabbits, birds and a monkey. Illustrated books and magazines (1936–37) and wrote a series of essays on nature, which he illustrated with his own watercolours (1936). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1894). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Society of Russian Watercolourists (1894–98), Imperial Academy of Arts (1897–1905), 36 Artists (1901, 1902), World of Art (1901, 1902, 1906, 1911–13), New Society of Artists (1905–09), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1908–09), Union of Russian Artists (1908–17), Sergei Makovsky Salon (1909), Vladimir Izdebsky Salon (1909–10), Exhibition of Pictures of Petrograd Artists of All Directions (1923), Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (1925, 1926), Arkhip Kuinji Society (1926–29), international exhibitions in Vienna (1901) and Munich (1901, gold medal; 1909) and the exhibitions of Russian art in Paris (1906), Berlin (1906) and New York (1924). Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1935).