Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
1878–1939
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin was born in Khvalynsk on the Volga. His education took him through Samara, Saint Petersburg, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, and studios in Munich and Paris. Valentin Serov was among his Moscow teachers. He studied early Russian painting and modern European art, producing portraits, still lifes and figure compositions. Teaching and reflection on pictorial structure accompanied his practice.
His system emphasized red, yellow and blue, while his spatial constructions combined views from above and from the side. This approach became known as spherical perspective. Bathing of a Red Horse, exhibited in 1912, marked an important stage in his career. Its differences of scale and symbolic colour give ordinary bathing historical and symbolic possibilities. He later taught at the Academy of Arts and wrote the autobiographical books Khlynovsk and Euclid’s Space.
