17.05.1871 – 05.05.1955

Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva – Russian artist, graphic artist, watercolor painter, master of landscape, was born May 17, 1871 in St. Petersburg in the family of a high-ranking official. She started painting as a schoolgirl, and in 1889-1892 she studied graphic arts in the class of Vasily Vasilyevich Mate in the School of Technical Drawing of Baron Alexander Ludwigovich Stieglitz. In 1892-1900 she continued her studies at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, her teachers were Ilya Repin, Konstantin Savitsky and Pavel Chistyakov.

Studying in 1898-1899 in Paris, the artist gets to know Somov, Benois and in 1900 makes his debut with his engravings at the exhibition “World of Art”.

Despite the fact that Ostroumova-Lebedeva tried her hand at many genres – portraits and still lifes of her brush are known, but more often her engravings and watercolors were dedicated to St. Petersburg. Its urban landscapes are full of simplicity and grandeur, laconicism and grace.

After the revolution Ostroumov-Lebedeva taught at the Higher Institute of Photography and Photography, in 1934-1935 – at the Academy of Arts. During the Great Patriotic War she stayed in Leningrad, created a number of shrill graphic images of the besieged city. After the war in 1946, Ostroumova-Lebedeva was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the RSFSR. Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva initiated the revival of Russian original chromolithography and color woodcuts.

Ostroumova-Lebedeva died in 1955 in Leningrad.