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biography

Alexandre Iacovleff (Jacovleff) (Russian, 1887–1938)

Alexander Evgenyevich Yakovlev was born into the family of a naval officer. He received artistic education at the Petersburg Academy of Arts (1905-13), where he studied under Dmitry Kardovsky. At that time already, Alexander Yakovlev was fond of graphic art and started contributing to art logs as a graphic artist. His pictures appeared in the Apollo, Satyricon, New Satyricon, and Niva.

The artist started participating in exhibitions in 1909. His large group portrait At the Academic Dacha (1912) shown at the Baltic Exhibition in Malmoe (Sweden) was highly appreciated by Alexander Benois.

In his academic years, the artist became a bosom friend and creative collaborator of Vassily Shukhayev. Their contemporaries jokingly called them twin artists.

After a short-time infatuation with impressionism in his student years, Alexander Yakovlev resorted to classical art for inspiration. His competitive works Bathing and In the Russian Baths (both 1913) showed the young artist’s orientation to the art of old masters. His inclination to Neoclassicism could be seen in them already. These works gained him the artist’s title and a grant for a creative trip abroad. From 1913 to 1915 he lived and studied old painting in Italy. Afterward, the artist visited the island of Majorca in Spain. Read More