Matvei Chizhov
Chizhov, Matvei Afanas’evich
Born Nov. 10 (22), 1838, in the village of Pudovo, in present-day Moscow Oblast; died May 28 (June 10), 1916, in Petrograd. Russian sculptor.
Chizhov studied at the Stroganov Commercial Art School in Moscow from 1856 to 1857, the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1857 to 1860, and the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts from 1860 to 1867 (with N. S. Pimenov and P. K. Klodt). In 1893 he became a member of the Academy of Arts. Chizhov taught at Baron Shtiglits’ Central School of Technical Drawing in St. Petersburg from 1879 to 1910.
Chizhov’s works are devoted to themes from the life of the people. His treatment of figures is similar to that of the peredvizhniki (the “wanderers”—a progressive art movement). Examples are Peasant in Misery (bronze, 1872, Russian Museum, Leningrad; marble, 1873, Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow) and Mother Teaching Her Daughter the Mother Tongue (plaster of paris, 1873, Russian Museum, Leningrad). Chizhov also sculpted a number of portraits.