Varvara Matveevna Baruzdina (; 1862, Krasny Kholm – 1941, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian painter during the Belle Époque, active in St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and Tsarskoye Selo. The niece and close student to fellow painter Pavel Chistyakov, she was primarily known for portraits and genre pictures.

Biography Her father was a village craftsman. In 1875, she moved to Saint Petersburg to live with her uncle, the painter Pavel Chistyakov, who provided her first drawing lessons. Five years later, she entered the Imperial Academy of Arts where she became his formal student. While there, she was awarded a silver medal and graduated in 1885.Brief biography // RusArtNet

She began participating in exhibitions after 1888; notably those of the Academy (until 1916), the Female Art Circle (1889) and the Moscow Art Lovers Society (1895-1896). Her painting, The Nun, was acquired by Pavel Tretyakov in 1896. Another painting, Separated, was shown at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. Along with numerous other Russian paintings, it was "lost" there and not recovered for many years."Separated and ‘lost’ for 103 years" Articles / Texticles

In the 1920s, after spending some time in Crimea, she moved into Chistyakov's house in the Pushkin District, where she wrote memoirs of his life and attracted a circle of students who wanted to be taught by his methods.Brief biography // Studiai

She died in Pushkin during the German invasion and siege of Leningrad, aged nearly eighty; friends buried her in the garden of the Chistyakovs' house. The memoirs were published in 1953.

The majority of Baruzdina's works is owned by the , and is housed in the Chistyakov Museum in Pushkin; that aside, there is only a small number of painting and drawings available, with The Nun of 1893, in the Tretyakov Gallery, The GradmaPortrayal of Anna Pavlovna Chistyakova (née Naydyonova; 1802–1890), the mother of Pavel Chistyakov and the maternal grandmother of Baruzdina herself. of 1890, in the Russian Museum from 1925, and Maximilian Voloshin of 1916, in the , being the most notable. An oil portrait of Baruzdina, by , signed and dated 1935, is in the Tretyakov Gallery.

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Further reading

External links Varvara Baruzdina at the Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts' collection database