Rafail Levitsky

Rafail Levitsky was a Russian painter and photographer, the son of Count Sergei Levitsky, one of the founders of photography in Russia and Europe. He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg under Pavel Chistyakov, Vasily Perov and Vasily Polenov. He was friends with Nikolai Chekhov, the brother of Anton Chekhov, and Lev Tolstoy, who visited him several times. He participated in the Peredvizhniki movement and exhibited his paintings of landscapes, genre scenes and portraits. He also helped his father in his photographic studio and took portraits of many famous Russian figures, such as Alexander III, Nicholas II, and Napoleon III. He was recognized for his mastery of natural and artificial light and his artistic expression in photography. He died in 1940 and was buried in Leningrad. He is regarded as one of the most original and popular Russian painters and photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries.