The creative work of Serov is a special part in the history of Russian Art. Even in the cultural life of the 18th 19th century his works were a marking stage in Russian painting bringing together the traditions of the Wander’ with new Russian art trends. Known best for his portraits, he also excelled in landscape, historical scenes and theater stage design. His acquaintances and friendships were in all phases of the arts.

The artist Valentin Alexandrovich Serov was born into the family of a famous Russian composer Alexander Serov. In 1871, his father died and in 1872-73 the little boy with his widowed mother, lived in Munich, where he had lessons from the artist K. Kepping.

In 1874, they moved to Paris where Valentin regularly visited the studio of Ilya Repin, who was very fond of the little boy. In 1875, the Serovs came to live at Abramtsevo, the estate of the industrial tycoon Savva Mamontov, and the cultural center of the time, where artists, musicians and actors were always welcome. Valentin grew up in an atmosphere of constant creativity, which characterized the Mamontovs’ household. He was lucky in getting a professional education from early childhood from the best Russian artists, and he soon showed himself to be a remarkably precocious draughtsman. He would catch the likeness of a model often more quickly and surely than the older artists in the ‘facetious drawing competitions’, which were so much a part of the gay and idyllic life of Abramtsevo.

At the age of 15, Serov entered Academy of Arts in the class of professor Pavel Tchistykov. His first exhibited works when he was 22, Girl with Peaches. Portrait of Vera Mamontova. (1887) and Girl in the Sunlight. Portrait of Maria Simonovich. (1888) were a sensation. Critics called them a new word in painting. At the time of painting them Serov was unfamiliar with the works of the French Impressionists, yet he came very close to Renoir in these luminous, sunny, splendidly composed portraits.

Serov tried himself in different genres: he was a beautiful landscape painter in a more sensuous and less nostalgic vein than another teacher of his, Isaac Levitan: Pond in Abramtsevo. (1886), The Overgrown Pond. Domotcanovo. (1888), Village. (1898), Watermill in Finland. (1902). Serov’s historical paintings are also of value and interest: Peter II and Princess Elizabeth Petrovna Riding to Hounds. (1900), Peter the Great. (1907).

Serov became the most successful and brilliant portraitist in Russia of the 1890s and first decade of the 20th century. His most famous portraits are Portrait of the Actress Maria Yermolova. (1905), Portrait of Henrietta Girshman. (1907), Portrait of Ida Rubenstein. (1910), Portrait of Princess Olga Orlova. (1911).

He traveled much, participated in exhibitions in Russia and abroad. In 1897-1909, Serov taught in Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was a superb technical master of the many media in which he practiced and that too did not fail to impress his students. In 1903, he was elected the academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Serov died in 1911.