Dmitry Levitzky

Dmitry Grigoryevich Levitzky or Levitsky was a Ukrainian-born Russian portrait painter and academician.

Biography

He was born in May 1735 in Kiev to, a priest, who was also an amateur painter and engraver and served as his first art teacher. In 1758, he moved to Saint Petersburg to become a pupil of the Russian artist Aleksey Antropov, who had been in Kiev to create decorative paintings at the Cathedral of St Andrew. He also studied with Giuseppe Valeriani. In 1764, he established himself as a free-lance artist.
In 1770, Levitzky became famous after the exhibition of six of his portraits in the Imperial Academy of Arts; notably for a portrait of the architect Alexander Kokorinov. As a result, he was named an academician and appointed as professor of the portrait painting class at the Academy. He remained in this position until 1788. In 1807, he returned to the Academy.
In 1772–1776, Levitzky worked on a series of portraits of the pupils of the privileged women's establishment, the Smolny Institute for Young Ladies, in St. Petersburg. They were commissioned by Catherine II. The girls are depicted performing dances, music, and plays.
Levitzky's eyesight began to deteriorate at the end of the 1790s, and he rarely painted as a result of this. He died on 16 April 1822 in St. Petersburg.