22.09. 1874 – 02.07.1950

Pavel Shmarov (real name Shmyrov) was born in the family of a peasant in the suburban Voronezh settlement of Chizhovke.

Studying in the district school of Voronezh, in 1893 he entered the free drawing school of Voronezh icon painter Lev Grigorievich Solovyov. In 1894 he entered as an auditor at the Higher Art School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and was engaged in the workshop of I.E. Repin. Pavel Shmarov received the first prize of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in 1898 for his painting “Asphalt Workers”. A year later, for the painting “Woe to the Defeated”, the artist was awarded a gold medal, and the rights of a pensioner trip abroad, which he used in 1900-1902, having visited Vienna, Rome, Florence, Munich, Paris. On his return he lived in St. Petersburg.

In 1916 Pavel Dmitrievich was elected academician and chairman of the organizing committee of the Spring Exhibition in the halls of the Petersburg Academy of Arts.

The artist’s works were exhibited at many exhibitions: the MOLH, the Association of Artists, TPHV. During the First World War, the artist went to the front, where he performed 30 drawings on the themes of the war, published later in the magazines “Argus”, “Ogonyok”, “Niva”.

In 1923, P.D. Shmarov emigrated from Russia. About two years he spent in Rome and at the end of 1924 he settled in Paris, where he lived and worked the rest of his life.

His first solo exhibition in France took place in 1928 in the Paris gallery “Charpentier”, and one of the paintings shown on it – “Bathing” – was purchased by the Luxembourg Museum. Pavel Shmarov left in France a large artistic heritage, combining the Russian academic tradition with art deco.

Died July 2, 1950. Buried in the cemetery of Pierre Grenier in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris. The relatives had no money for the maintenance of the grave, and the remains of the artist were exhumed and reburied in a common grave.

In 1955, the widow and friends of the artist held a retrospective exhibition in the gallery “Charpentier”.

The artist’s works are in many museum and private collections abroad and in Russia.

Image: P.D. Shmarov. Portrait of Inna Alexandrovna Domogarova. 1907 (from the collection of Voronezh Regional Art Museum named after I. Kramskoy)