Pyotr Utkin

Painter, graphic artist, applied artist, illustrator, teacher. Born in Tambov in the family of railway employee Savva Utkin (1877). Studied under Vasily Konovalov and Ettore Salvini-Baracci at the school of drawing of the Saratov Society of Lovers of the Fine Arts (1892–96), Victor Borisov-Musatov at the Alexei Bogolyubov School of Drawing in Saratov (1897) and Abram Arkhipov, Nikolai Kasatkin, Leonid Pasternak, Isaac Levitan, Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1897–1907). Sailed down the River Volga from Simbirsk to Saratov with Pavel Kuznetsov (1900) and collaborated with Pavel Kuznetsov and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin on frescoes for the Church of Our Lady of Kazan in Saratov, which were considered blasphemous and rejected by the Russian Orthodox Church (1902). Worked at Savva Mamontov’s Abramtsevo Ceramics Studio in Moscow (1903). Helped to organise such Symbolist exhibitions as Crimson Rose in Saratov (1904) and Blue Rose in Moscow (1907). Collaborated with the Golden Fleece magazine (1906–09), illustrated Andrei Bely’s The Silver Dove (1910) and Stanislaw Przybyszewski’s Dzie? s?du (1910). Worked alongside Pavel Kuznetsov, Alexander Matveyev and Victor Zamirailo on the design and decoration of collector Jacob Zhukovsky’s villa and park at his estate of Novy Kuchuk-Koi in the Crimea (1909–14). Member of the World of Art (1913) and Four Arts (1924). Taught at the Saratov State Free Art Studios/Saratov Technical College of Art and Industry (1918–31) and the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Leningrad (1931–34, professor). Died at the age of fifty-seven in Leningrad (1934). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1898). Contributed to the exhibitions of Crimson Rose (1904), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1905, 1907, 1910, 1913), Blue Rose (1907), Wreath (1908), Golden Fleece Salons (1908–10), Union of Russian Artists (1909–13), New Society of Artists (1910), Moscow Salon (1911), World of Art (1912–17), Fire-Colour (1924, 1925), Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (1925), Masters of the Blue Rose (1925), Four Arts (1925, 1926, 1928), Sergei Diaghilev’s Exposition de l’Art russe at the Salon d’Automne in Paris (1906) and Russische Kunst-Ausstellung at the Kunstsalon Schulte in Berlin (1906), international exhibitions in Rome (1911) and Vienna (1913), memorial exhibition in Leningrad (1935) and a retrospective at the Alexander Radischev Museum of Art in Saratov (1980).