Arkhip Kuindzhi

Arkhip Kuindzhi
Portrait of Kuindzhi by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1869
Born	(1842-01-27)27 January 1842 Mariupol, Russian Empire (now Ukraine )
Died	24 July 1910(1910-07-24) (aged 68) St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
Education	Imperial Academy of Arts
Known for	Painting
Notable work	Evening in Ukraine (1878–1901), Night on the Dnepr (1882)
Movement	Realism
Awards	Bronze Medal (London, 1874)
Patron(s)	Pavel Tretyakov

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (or Kuinji; Russian: Архи́п Ива́нович Куи́нджи; Ukrainian: Архи́п Іва́нович Куї́нджі; January 27, 1842(?) – July 24, 1910) was a landscape painter of Greek descent.

Arkhip Kuindzhi was born in January 1842 (1841?) in Mariupol (nowadays Ukraine) but spent his youth in the city of Taganrog. His Christian name is a Russian and Ukrainian rendering of the Greek, Ἄρχιππος, (Archippos, from ἄρχος (archos) "master" and ἱππος (hippos) "horse": "master of horses"; cf. Colossians 4:17; ) and his surname came from his grandfather's vocational nickname meaning 'goldsmith' in Tatar (cf. Turkish, kuyumcu). He grew up in a poor family; his father was a Greek shoemaker, Ivan Khristoforovich Kuindzhi (sometimes spelt Emendzhi). Arkhip was six years old when he lost his parents, so he was forced to make a living working at a church building site, grazing domestic animals, and working at the corn merchant's shop. He received the rudiments of an education from a Greek friend of the family who was a teacher and then went to the local school.

In 1855, at age 13–14, Kuindzhi visited Feodosia to study art under Ivan Aivazovsky, however, he was engaged merely with mixing paints and instead studied with Adolf Fessler, Aivazovsky's student. A 1903 encyclopedic article stated: "Although Kuindzhi cannot be called a student of Aivazovsky, the latter had without doubt some influence on him in the first period of his activity; from whom he borrowed much in the manner of painting." English art historian John E. Bowlt wrote that "the elemental sense of light and form associated with Aivazovsky's sunsets, storms, and surging oceans permanently influenced the young Kuindzhi."

During the five years from 1860 to 1865, Arkhip Kuindzhi worked as a retoucher in the photography studio of Simeon Isakovich in Taganrog. He tried to open his own photography studio, but without success. After that Kuindzhi left Taganrog for Saint Petersburg.