The Most Famous
ARTISTS from Russia
This page contains a list of the greatest Russian Artists. The pantheon dataset contains 125 Artists, 4 of which were born in Russia. This makes Russia the birth place of the 8th most number of Artists behind Netherlands, and Italy.
Top 5
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Russian Artists of all time. This list of famous Russian Artists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Käthe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945)
With an HPI of 67.46, Käthe Kollwitz is the most famous Russian Artist. Her biography has been translated into 53 different languages on wikipedia.
Käthe Kollwitz (German pronunciation: [kɛːtə kɔlvɪt͡s] born as Schmidt; 8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war on the working class. Despite the realism of her early works, her art is now more closely associated with Expressionism. Kollwitz was the first woman not only to be elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts but also to receive honorary professor status.
2. El Lissitzky (1890 - 1941)
With an HPI of 66.84, El Lissitzky is the 2nd most famous Russian Artist. His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (Russian: Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; 23 November [O.S. 11 November] 1890 – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (Russian: Эль Лиси́цкий; Yiddish: על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design. Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation). Lissitzky, of Lithuanian Jewish оrigin, began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia. When only 15 he started teaching, a duty he would maintain for most of his life. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. This continued until his deathbed, where in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany. In 2014, the heirs of the artist, in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum and leading worldwide scholars on the subject, established the Lissitzky Foundation in order to preserve the artist's legacy and to prepare a catalogue raisonné of the artist's oeuvre.
3. Onfim (b. 1250)
With an HPI of 53.17, Onfim is the 3rd most famous Russian Artist. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.
Anthemius (Novgorodian: Онѳимє, romanized: Onθime), better known by the modern Russian spelling of his name, Onfim (Russian: Онфим), was a boy who lived in Novgorod (now named Veliky Novgorod, Russia) in the 13th century, some time around 1220 or 1260. He left his notes and homework exercises scratched in soft birch bark which was preserved in the clay soil of Novgorod. Onfim, who was most likely six or seven at the time, wrote in the East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect. Besides letters and syllables, he drew "battle scenes and drawings of himself and his teacher".
4. Aleksandr Golovin (1863 - 1930)
With an HPI of 49.61, Aleksandr Golovin is the 4th most famous Russian Artist. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.
Aleksandr Yakovlevich Golovin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Я́ковлевич Голови́н, Russian pronunciation: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɡəlɐˈvʲin]; 1 March [O.S. 17 February] 1863 – 17 April 1930) was a Russian artist and stage designer. He designed productions for Sergei Diaghilev, Constantin Stanislavski and Vsevolod Meyerhold. Born at Moscow, Golovin initially studied architecture, later switching to painting. He also attended the Académie Colarossi. Due to financial difficulties, upon graduation he worked as an interior painter and decorator. He also tried his hand at various artistic fields such as furniture design. In 1900 he took part in designing the Russian Empire pavilion at the Paris World's Fair together with his friend K. A. Korovin. He studied at the Académie Vitti in Paris. In 1901 he moved to the Saint Petersburg region from Moscow. It was here that he came into his own as a stage designer, combining symbolism and modernism on operatic and dramatic productions for Diaghilev, Meyerhold and others. After the Revolution of 1917, Golovin found work in theatre less and less often, and so delved into painting and graphic illustration. Golovin provided the set design for the 1910 original production of Stravinsky's The Firebird ballet. Golovin provided the scenic design for an important production of Pierre Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro at the Moscow Art Theatre. The seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski directed the play in fast and free-flowing production that opened on 28 April 1927, having been rehearsed since the end of 1925. Stanislavski re-located the play's action to pre-Revolutionary France and trimmed its five-act structure to eleven scenes; Golovin employed a revolve to quicken scene-changes. It was a great success, garnering ten curtain calls on opening night. Golovin was appointed a People's Artist of the RSFSR. He died in Detskoye Selo on 17 April 1930.
5. Petr Pavlensky (b. 1984)
With an HPI of 37.16, Petr Pavlensky is the 5th most famous Russian Artist. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Pyotr (or Petr) Andreyevich Pavlensky (Russian: Пётр Андреевич Павленский; born 8 March 1984) is a Russian contemporary artist. He is known for his controversial political art performances, which he calls "events of Subject-Object Art" (previously "events of political art"). His work often involves nudity and self-mutilation. Pavlensky makes the "mechanics of power" visible, forcing authorities to take part in his events by staging them in areas with heavy police surveillance. By doing so, "the criminal case becomes one of the layers of the artwork" and the government is "[drawn] into the process of making art".
People
Pantheon has 5 people classified as Russian artists born between 1250 and 1984. Of these 5, 1 (20.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Russian artists include Petr Pavlensky. The most famous deceased Russian artists include Käthe Kollwitz, El Lissitzky, and Onfim. As of April 2024, 1 new Russian artists have been added to Pantheon including Onfim.
Living Russian Artists
Go to all RankingsDeceased Russian Artists
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Käthe Kollwitz
1867 - 1945
HPI: 67.46
El Lissitzky
1890 - 1941
HPI: 66.84
Onfim
1250 - Present
HPI: 53.17
Aleksandr Golovin
1863 - 1930
HPI: 49.61
Newly Added Russian Artists (2024)
Go to all RankingsOverlapping Lives
Which Artists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 3 most globally memorable Artists since 1700.
