Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya

Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya
ArtistNicolai Fechin
Year1914
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions135 cm × 145 cm (53 in × 57 in)
LocationState Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan

Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya (in Russian: Портрет Вари Адоратской) is a painting created by Nicolai Fechin in the spring of 1914 in Kazan, in the studio of his student Nadezhda Sapozhnikova.[1] The painting belongs to the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan in Kazan[2] and is displayed in the permanent exhibition of the Nicolai Fechin Hall in the National Art Gallery Khazine.[3] Art historian A. E. Kuznetsov, in an article about the painting's exhibition at the Moscow gallery Art-Divage, called the canvas one of the most brilliant children's portraits in the history of not only of Russian but also of world art.[4]

The painting belongs to the most significant period – 1914 to 1918 – of Fechin's work, according to G. P. Tuluzakova. During this time, Fechin, choosing the form of interior portraiture, sought to create a generalized, multifaceted image that would synthesize the model's psychological characteristics with her momentary mood or state.[5] Tuluzakova calls Portrait of Varya Adoratskaya "the most complete and perfect form of the image of childhood in Fechin's work". She considers the painting one of the artist's most harmonious creations, clear in thought and construction, and a visiting card of his Russian period.[6][7]

  1. ^ Kuznetsov (2004, p. 20)
  2. ^ Tuluzakova (2007, p. 463)
  3. ^ Монографический зал Николая Фешина. [Nicolai Fechin's Monographic Hall.] (in Russian). Государственный музей изобразительных искусств Республики Татарстан. 7 December 2018. Archive: 9 December 2018.
  4. ^ Kuznetsov (2004, p. 18)
  5. ^ Tuluzakova (1998)
  6. ^ Tuluzakova (2007, p. 77)
  7. ^ Tuluzakova (2014, p. 15)