Arkhip Kuindzhi was born in January 1842 in Mariupol but spent his youth in the city ofTaganrog. His Christian name is a Russian rendering of the Greek, Ἄρχιππος, "master" and ἱππος and his surname came from his grandfather's vocational nickname meaning 'goldsmith' in Tatar. He grew up in a poor family; his father was a Pontic Greekshoemaker, Ivan Khristoforovich Kuindzhi. 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. He studied painting mainly independently and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He was co-partner of travelling art exhibitions, a group of Russian realist artists who in protest to academic restrictions formed an artists' cooperative which evolved into the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions in 1870. In 1872 the artist left the academy and worked as a freelancer. The painting On the Valaam Island was the first artwork which Pavel Tretyakov acquired for his art gallery. In 1873 Kuindzhi exhibited his painting The Snow which received the bronze medal at the International Art Exhibition in London in 1874. In the middle of the 1870s he created a number of paintings in which the landscape motif was designed for concrete social associations in the spirit of Peredvizhniki. In his mature period Kuindzhy aspired to capture the most expressive illuminative aspect of the natural condition. He applied composite receptions, creating panoramic views. Using light effects and intense colors shown in main tones, he depicted the illusion of illumination. His later works are remarkable for their decorative effects of color building. Kuindzhi lectured at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Among his students were artists such as Arkady Rylov, Nicholas Roerich, Konstantin Bogaevsky, and others. Kuindzhi initiated the creation of the Society of Artists.
Theft of work
In January 2019, his work Ai-Petri. Crimea was stolen in broad daylight from Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery and later recovered.
