Pokhitonov Ivan Pavlovich - Russian painter, member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
Pokhitonov was born in 1850 in the village of Matrenovka, Kherson province, into a family of hereditary military men. Since childhood I.P. Pokhitonov was fond of drawing, painted Ukrainian huts, Kherson steppes, his relatives and friends in watercolors and oils.
Pokhitonov did not receive a special art education. He had to independently learn all the secrets of the painters skill.
In the fall of 1876, at the Traveling Exhibition held in Elizavetgrad, Pokhitonov first got acquainted with the paintings of A.I. Kuindzhi, I.I. Shishkina, A.P. Bogolyubov, A.K. Savrasov, M.K. Klodt, N.N. Ge, I.N. Kramskoy, V.E. Makovsky, who made a huge impression on him. The dream to someday become a participant in such an exhibition determined all his further aspirations to achieve professionalism.
In 1877, the artist decided to move to Paris, where he studied with E. Carriere and A.P. Bogolyubov.
The artist became famous for his miniatures, mostly landscape ones. He painted with a thin brush, using a magnifying glass, on boards of red or lemon wood, which he primed using a special technology.
By order of Emperor Alexander III (1881), he painted 9 panels with views of the battle places during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. In 1904, for this work, he was elected a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts for battle painting.
In 1905 and 1906 I.P. Pokhitonov visits Yasnaya Polyana with the great L.N. Tolstoy.
In 1911, a personal exhibition of Pokhitonov was held in the Lemersier gallery in Moscow.
Due to weak lungs I.P. Pokhitonov could not spend the winter in Russia. Therefore, he lived in France and Belgium for a long time, coming home in the summer months.
Pakhitonov died in Brussels on December 23, 1923.
Pokhitonovs work is presented in many private and museum collections, including the State Tretyakov Gallery, State Russian Museum, Pushkin Museum, Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts.