Kostandi Kiriak Konstantinovich

Ukrainian painter, a prominent representative of the Odessa school of painting. From 1868 he served as a retoucher in a photo workshop. He studied at the Drawing School of the Odessa Society of Fine Arts (1870-1874), and then at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1874-1882) with P.P. Chistyakova, M. K. Klodt; used the advice of I.N. Kramskoy and A.I. Kuindzhi. In 1887 he was in Europe, where he was strongly influenced by the French impressionists. Since 1885 he lived and worked in Odessa. He was a member of the “Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions” (since 1897), as well as one of the founding members of the “Association of South Russian Artists” (since 1890), and served as chairman of this association (1892–1919). Since 1885 he taught at the Odessa Art School. After the revolution, he worked as an expert at the local commission for the protection of ancient monuments, and participated in the reorganization of the school and the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1922, the artist’s students and friends (I.I. Brodsky, P.G. Volokidin, M.B. Grekov, A. Shovkunenko, etc.) founded the Society named after K.K. Kostandi. The society united artists of traditionalist and moderate modernist orientations and existed until 1930. Paintings by K.K. Kostandi are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of Ukrainian Art in Kyiv, the Odessa Art Museum and many other collections.