Zoia21. Zoia Korvin-Krukovsky (18 January 1903 - 22 November 1999), also known as Zoia Krukovskaya Lagerkrans, was a Russian-Swedish artist known for landscapes and portraits painted against a gold background. She signed her paintings simply Zoia.

Life

She was born Zoia Korvin-Krukovsky in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, Russia, the daughter of Colonel Krukovsky and Héléne Inkina. She was educated at the

Smolny Institute The Smolny Institute () is a Palladian edifice in Saint Petersburg that has played a major part in the history of Russia, notably as a center of women's education, and the headquarters of the Bolsheviks during the early stages of the October Re ...

. After the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, the family moved to Moscow, where she studied at the Moscow Academy of Art with

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

. She also studied in Paris for five years (1925–30), both at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière () is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the A ...

and privately with

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

and

Tsuguharu Foujita was a Japanese–French painter. After having studied Western-style painting in Japan, Foujita traveled to Paris, where he encountered the international modern art scene of the Montparnasse neighborhood and developed an eclectic style that borrow ...

. In 1921, Zoia met the Swedish communist politician

Karl Kilbom Karl Kilbom (8 May 1885 – 24 December 1961) was a Swedish politician and one of the founders of the Communist Party of Sweden. Youth As the son of a blacksmith, Karl Kilbom grew up in a working class family of Walloon origin in the small to ...

when he was part of a delegation at the

Profintern The Red International of Labor Unions (, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern (), was an international body established by the Communist International (Comintern) with the aim of coordinating communist activities within trade unions. Formally ...

congress held in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. Zoia was serving as an interpreter, but during the congress she was arrested as a suspect in a counterrevolutionary conspiracy. Kilbom helped to get Zoia released, and in 1922 she married him and moved to Sweden. They later divorced, and in 1938 she married the Swedish architect Gunnar Lagerkrans. She died in Stockholm.

Art

Zoia's distinctive style draws on 13th century Italian religious art, East Asian art, Dutch flower painting, and Russian icons. Her best-known works are urban landscapes and figurative paintings, often executed on a gold background. Her first solo exhibition was at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in 1929 and included only portraits. Among those she painted were Iranian empress

Farah Pahlavi Farah Pahlavi (; []; born 14 October 1938) is the former Queen and last Empress () of Pahlavi Iran and is the third wife and widow of the last List of monarchs of Iran, Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. She was born into a prosperous Ira ...

, King Hassan of Morocco,

Queen Silvia of Sweden Silvia (born Silvia Renate Sommerlath; 23 December 1943) is Queen of Sweden as the wife of King Carl XVI Gustaf. She has held this title since her marriage to Carl XVI Gustaf in 1976. The king and queen have three children: Crown Princess Vict ...

, and Soviet leader

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

. Her work is in the collection of several museums, including the Swedish National Museum and the

Swedish Museum of Modern Art Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

. In 2006, the English novelist

Philip Sington Philip Sington is an English novelist and playwright. He was born in Cambridge, UK. He read history at Trinity College, Cambridge. Together with the mystery writer Gary Humphreys, he has co-authored six thrillers under the joint pseudonym of Pa ...

published ''Zoia's Gold'', a novel loosely based on the events of her life.

References

External links

Photo of Zoia aged 26
{{DEFAULTSORT:Korvin-Krukovsky, Zoia 1903 births 1999 deaths Soviet painters Soviet emigrants to Sweden