Vassily Maximov

Vassily Maximov (1844–1911) was born into a peasant family in the village of Lopino, near Novaya Ladoga in the Saint Petersburg Governorate. Orphaned young, he first learned to paint in an icon-painting workshop, and in 1863 entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, where Fyodor Bruni and Pyotr Shamshin are recorded among his teachers. He completed the course in three years, then declined to compete for the Academy's major gold medal and the study abroad that came with it, choosing to study the Russian village instead. He settled in the village of Shubino in Tver province, painting peasant life and teaching painting to the Golenishchev-Kutuzov princes. Grandmother's Tales was bought by Pavel Tretyakov, and in 1872 he joined the Peredvizhniki, becoming one of the group's most steadfast members. When realism fell from fashion he kept painting peasant scenes that found little market; his last years were spent in poverty and illness, and he died in Saint Petersburg in 1911. Here: Praying for the Sick Husband.