Serebryakova (1884-1967) belonged to the younger generation of the renowned World of Art guild. Dominating its trailblazing endeavours was the art nouveau, a lavish and graceful style, one of the most popular late in the 19th century and early in the 20th.
Proceeding from the artistic idiom of her time, Zinaida Serebryakova enriched it with flashbacks from the Italian Renaissance and Russian Classicism to paint forms of refined beauty and serene harmony. Underlying the noble reticence of her every canvas is a jubilant lyricism to which her art owed a charisma all its own.
Standing out in her work are numerous landscapes of Neskuchnoye, her father's country estate near Kharkov, where she was born and where she spent her happiest years. The small sketches "Cattle Pen" and "A Balcony of the Squire's House at Neskuchnoye" are captivating in their spontaneity and freshness of the colour scheme. Unlike them, "A Field" and "Riverscape", with their bold brushstroke, offer a generalised view of nature.
Love, tender care and psychological insight mark Serebryakova's many portraits of her friends and relations, and local farmers-suffice it to mention "A Peasant Lass", "A Girl in Blue" and the excellent "Self-portrait with a Scarf".
Two monumental canvases, "Harvest" and "Sackcloth Bleaching", stand out in Zinaida Serebryakova's heritage. Again, the artist owed their idea to the Neskuchnoye routine.
A poetic treatment of the everydays, cleaned of their drab quality, found reflection in her famous "In a Veranda, Kharkov", which portrays the paintress' mother and children at their habitual chores.
Serebryakova's ballet series of the 1920s extols youth, beauty and joie de vivre. Standing out in the series is "Ballerinas in Their Dressing-room".
Serebryakova often painted nudes. The Beauty Oasis has on display a sketch to her 1916 canvas, "Diana and Actaeon", and two Parisian sketches.
The most noteworthy of her emigre works are pastels made on repeated trips to Morocco-"A Senegalese Soldier", "She Who Gazes into the Distance" and "A Relaxing Arab with Camels".
The works on display came from the Novosibirsk, Altai and Tomsk museums-all in Siberia.
