Leonid Ivanovich Solomatkin
(1837 - 1883)
Leonid Solomatkin, a genre painter of the second half of the nineteenth century, was of humble origin. His childhood was that of an orphaned shepherd boy, and he spent his youth as a homeless carter, criss-crossing half of Russia, selling icons. Even in his apprentice years Solomatkin contributed to Russian art a sincere love for ordinary people, a firsthand knowledge of their life, hearty humour and scathing satire. In the 1860’s Solomatkin was recognized as a leading satirical painter.
Solomatkin's success was signal, but short-lived. From the late 1860’s he stopped exhibiting and was almost forgotten. He vanished among the city poor and the inhabitants of doss-houses, becoming more and more their painter, giving expression to their woes and sorrows, to their cheerless consolations. Yet, curiously enough, it was in this very period that Solomatkin evolved the individual artistic manner which characterizes his best pictures, of which many have yet to be found and studied.
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow