Meshkov, Vasilii Nikitich

Born Dec. 25, 1867 (Jan. 6, 1868), in Elets; died Nov. 26, 1946, in Moscow. Soviet painter and graphic artist. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1943).

Meshkov studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture under I. M. Prianishnikov and V. D. Polenov from 1882 to 1889 and at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1889 and 1890. He became a member of the Moscow Society of Artists in 1893 and of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) in 1922. Meshkov taught at his own school of painting and drawing in Moscow between 1892 and 1917 and at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad between 1937 and 1940. His pupils included B. N. lakovlev, V. N. lakovlev, and P. M. Shumikhin.

Primarily in the 1890’s, Meshkov painted genre scenes in the spirit of the late peredvizhniki style (a progressive art movement). He also did landscapes and portraits. His most important portraits during Soviet times (S. M. Budennyi, 1927; M. L Kalinin, 1937—both in the Tret’iakov Gallery) are perceptive and truthful character studies. Meshkov, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and several medals, was the father and teacher of the landscape painter Vasilii Vasil’evich Meshkov (1893–1963).