orbatov Konstantin Ivanovich
(Stavropol 1876 - Berlin 1945)
Sailing Boats on the Volga
Biography
Gorbatov came to fine art unusually late in his career when moved to St. Petersburg in 1904. He trained at the Baron Stieglitz Central School for Technical Draftsmanship before converting his energies into the freer form of painting. He completed his studies at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts aged thirty-five. Amongst his teachers were Alexei Kisselev and Nikolai Dubovskoy. Despite early artistic links with St. Petersburg, however, Gorbatov also shares many traits with his contemporaries from the Moscow School of the World of Art movement, such as Yuon, Petrovichev and Zhukovsky. Principally, as Lyudmilla Denisova argues, in the quest for a National Russian landscape as evident in his choice of subject the medieval towns of Novgorod and Pskov (L.Denisova, Konstantin Gorbatov: K 125 letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya, Moscow: Novyi Ermitazh, 2001, p.3). He moved to Berlin in 1926 but continued to travel extensively throughout Europe during the late 30s, visiting Palestine and Syria in 1934 and 1935. As a Soviet citizen he was forbidden to leave Germany during World War II; he died in Berlin shortly thereafter.
Collections
Gorbatov is represented in the collection of Historical, Architectural and Art Museum, Moscow, amongst other collections.