Dmitry Levitzky

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Dmitry Levitzky (Dmitry Grigoryevich Levitsky) (Russian: Дмитрий Григорьевич Левицкий, 1735-1822) was a Russian-Ukrainian portrait painter.

[edit] Biography

Dmitry was born in Kiev, currently Ukraine in a family of clergyman and engraver Grigory Levitzky. His father was his first art teacher. Later be became a pupil of Aleksey Antropov who came to Kiev to paint the Kiev Cathedral of St. Andrew.

In 1770, Levitzky became famous as a portrait painter after the exhibition of six of his portraits in the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. For the portrait of Alexander Kokorinov, Director and First Rector of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg (1769) he was elected an academician and appointed the Professor of the portrait painting class at the Academy of Arts. He remained on this position until 1788.

In 1772-1776 Levitzky worked on a series of portraits of the pupils of the privileged women establishment Smolny Institute for Young Ladies in St. Petersburg commissioned by Catherine II. The girls are depicted performing dances, music, plays.

Though Levitzky had many commissions, they were, in most cases, poorly paid, and the painter died in poverty in 1822.

[edit] Works

Architect Alexander Kokorinov, Director and First Rector of the Imperial Academy of Arts, 1769	Prokofiy Demidov. 1773	E. N. Khruschova and Princess E. N. Khovanskaya. 1773.	Ekaterina Nelidova, 1773
Alexander Lanskoy, Aide-de-camp to the Empress, 1782	Duchess Ursula Mniszech, 1782	Catherine II as Legislator in the Temple of the Goddess of Justice. 1783	Self-Portrait. 1783
Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova, 1784	Portrait of General Iosif Igelström. 1790	Nikolay Novikov, 1797