Yakunchikova, Maria (1870–1901)

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Yakunchikova, Maria (1870–1901)

Russian artist. Name variations: Maria Vasilevna Yakunchikova. Born in 1870 in Wiesbaden, Germany; died in 1901 in Chêne Bougerie, Switzerland; grew up in Moscow; studied painting privately with N.A. Martynov; attended Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, beginning 1885; studied at the Académie Julian, in Paris, 1889.

Began a collection of Russian arts and crafts (1887); traveled to Europe (1888); studied art in Paris (1889); began experimenting with wood engraving, etching, and lithography (1893); helped to create an exhibition of Russian handicrafts for the Exposition Universelle in Paris (1900).

Selected works:

Bois de Boulogne (1896); The Window (1896); Aspen and Fir-Tree (1896); The Flame (1897); Fear (Polenov Estate Museum); The Unattainable (an engraving between 1893 and 1895); Little Girl and Wood Spirit (an embroidered panel, c. 1900; I.S. Weber Collection, Chêne Bougerie, Switzerland).

Maria Yakunchikova was born in 1870, to a family in Wiesbaden, Germany. Raised in Moscow, she was surrounded by members of the intelligentsia from an early age. Her home was often visited by such figures as Constantin Stanislavski, Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein, and the Mamontovs. Yakunchikova was the niece of the wife of Pavel Tretyakov, a famous art collector, and related by her sister's marriage to artist Vasily Polenov.

Yakunchikova's short life was devoted to art, from collecting Russian folk arts and crafts to creating paintings, engravings, textiles, furniture and ceramics. Her work was imbued with the nostalgia and somber mood characteristic of the Symbolist movement that prevailed in Russia and Europe during her career. Yakunchikova's own sense of life's transience, which was reflected in her art, may have been heightened by her long battle with tuberculosis.

Maria's artistic talent was apparent by the time she was 12. Her family moved in a circle of artists and intellectuals, and the young girl was encouraged to develop her art. When she was 13, Yakunchikova took private painting and drawing lessons with artist N.A. Martynov. By 1885, she began formal training at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. In 1887, Yakunchikova developed an interest in Russian history, architecture, and artifacts under the influence of artist Elena Polenova . She began to collect Russian arts and crafts, items which served as creative inspiration for her life and work.

It was at the Polenov home—Yakunchikova's sister Natalya Polenova had married artist Vasily Polenov in 1882—that the teenage artist attended painting evenings from 1887 to 1889. She found her own interest in landscapes reflected in the work of painter Issak Levitan whom she met at the Polenov home. His works were the first to impress her youthful artistic sensibility. In 1889, when Yakunchikova was about 19, she went to Paris to study painting at the Académie Julian with the academic painters Bouguereau and Fleury. There, she was exposed to Art Nouveau as well as other art trends of the time; her 1896 painting Bois de Boulogne echoes the organic lines of the Art Noveau movement.

Yakunchikova traveled often during the 1890s, in part to seek relief from her tuberculosis. She spent winters in Paris where the weather was relatively mild. Summers were spent in Russia with the Polenovs or other family friends, studying the Russian folk art she loved. When she was in her early 20s, Yakunchikova began to experiment with wood engraving, etching, and lithography. Her new work during the period from 1893 to 1895 included the etching Death and Flowers, in which a skull seems to meld with life-affirming flowers, and The Unattainable, an etching that depicts a girl fruitlessly raising her arms to fly with the birds overhead. Yakunchikova visited Paris again in 1894 where she curated an exhibit of women artists who specialized in applied art. The following year she began to organize folk art exhibits in Russia. Yakunchikova was unimpressed with the French Symbolist artists active in Paris during her visit there. Once home, she increasingly turned to nature and the Russian forest for inspiration, and her depictions of aspen and firs are considered some of her best work. The Window (1896) and Aspen and Fir-tree (1896) are also from that period.

In 1900, a year before her own death, Yakunchikova helped complete an exhibition of Russian handicrafts, planned by Elena Polenova before her death in 1898, for the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Yakunchikova created a large embroidered panel for the exhibition, Little Girl and Wood Spirit (I.S. Weber collection, Chêne Bougerie, Switzerland). The work is considered an impressive example of Yakunchikova's lifelong devotion to symbolic art. The artist died in 1901, at age 32, in Chêne Bougerie. She was honored by the "World of Art" Group who highlighted her work in a memorial issue of their magazine.