Rufin Gavrilovich Sudkovsky (; 19 April 1850,

Ochakov Ochakiv (, ), also known as Ochakov (; ; or, archaically, ) and Alektor (), is a small city in Mykolaiv Raion, Mykolaiv Oblast (region) of southern Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Ochakiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

– 16 February 1885, Ochakov) was a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Imperial landscape painter who specialized in naval and

maritime Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Princ ...

scenes. Rufin Sudkovsky was also well known as the first husband of the popular illustrator Elena Samokysh-Sudkovskaya.

Biography

He was the son of a Russian Orthodox priest in the Diocese of

Kherson Kherson (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and , , ) is a port city in southern Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, Kherson is the home to a major ship-bui ...

, then part of the

, now Ukraine. Originally, he planned to follow in his father's footsteps, studying first at the local religious school, then at the Odessa Theological Seminary, but he soon lost interest. He had been attracted to drawing since he was a child, and began to frequent the Odessa Drawing School at the local art society. Under the influence of Odessa's status as a major port, his focus soon turned to maritime themes. Sudkovsky 003

In 1868, he left the seminary and went to Saint Petersburg, where he was accepted on a provisional basis at the

Imperial Academy of Arts The Imperial Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of the Imperial Moscow University, under the name ''Academy of th ...

. He eventually became a full student, remaining for three years and being awarded several medals. He returned to Ochakiv in 1871 and began a series of sketches of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

coastline. Most of these early works were derivative, and were not successful when they were exhibited in Saint Petersburg. His technique and originality improved during a trip to Germany and France in 1874.Brief biography
@ Imperia. Three years later, a new exhibit at the Academy earned him the title of "Free Artist" (second degree). In 1879, he was promoted to first degree. Sudkovsky 007

Plagiarism?

He continued to exhibit in Saint Petersburg, sometimes together with Julius Sergius von Klever. In 1882, his painting, "Tempest near Ochakov", won him the title of Academician. The following year, he was married and became embroiled in a controversy when

Arkhip Kuindzhi Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi ( ; ; – ) was a Russian landscape painter. Date of birth Kuindzhi's exact date of birth is not known. Although it was believed that he was born in 1842, the latest discoveries in archives suggest that he was born i ...

(a former roommate at the Academy) accused him of plagiarism. Although the critics and press took his side, several artists ( Kramskoi, Maximov, Volkov and Repin) published a letter in the '' New Times'', stating that Sudovsky had "directly borrowed" from Kuindzhi.Brief biography
@ the Museum of Ukrainian Art,

Dnipropetrovsk Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

. Two years later, at the height of his career, he fell ill with

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...

during an exhibition in Kiev, and was taken back to Ochakiv, where he died. Despite his short life, he was able to complete a large number of canvases, which were presented by his friends in a retrospective, shortly after his death. His widow, Elena (also an artist), married the military painter,

Nikolay Samokish Nikolay Semyonovich Samokish (; ; 25 October 1860, Nezhin, Government of Chernigov, Russian Empire – 18 January 1944, Simferopol, Russian SFSR, USSR) was a Ukrainian and Soviet painter and illustrator of Ukrainian Cossack descent who specialize ...

in 1889 and became a popular illustrator.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sudkovsky, Rufin 1850 births 1885 deaths 19th-century painters from the Russian Empire Russian landscape painters 19th-century male artists from the Russian Empire People from Ochakiv Russian marine artists Deaths from typhus Painters from the Russian Empire