A Russian Odyssey: The Art and Times of Ivan Djeneeff

This exhibition explores the diverse career of Ivan Alexeyevich Dejeneeff through approximately 150 paintings, watercolors, and drawings by the Russian American artist. Born in 1868, Dejeneeff studied under Russia’s finest nineteenth-century painters at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, and carried out post-graduate studies at the Academie Julian in Paris.

A Russian Odyssey included works Djeneeff painted in Russia in the early twentieth century. It also included sketches completed during his career as a Russian officer during World War I and works dating from his assignment as a weapons inspector in the United States.

From Djeneeff’s exile in America during the Bolshevik Revolution until his death in 1955, he created a body of work that can be described as a nostalgic look at the Russia of his youth, vivid depictions from Slavic folk tales, and scenes from Russian history.