Filipp Malyavin was born in the large village of Kazanka (Samara Governorate, now Totsky District, Orenburg Oblast), into a poor peasant family with many children.

Having used up his money and thus unable to return to Russia, Malyavin entered the monastery as a novice, and was charged with painting icons and murals.

This continued until 1891, when Malyavin met Vladimir Beklemishev, a Russian sculptor and professor at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts who was on a visit to Athos.

However, Malyavin applied for, and was accepted into, the studio of Russian realist Ilya Repin, who among others, also taught Igor Grabar, Konstantin Somov, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, and Boris Kustodiev.

It was here, in Repin's studio, that Malyavin began creating some of his most famous early works, including Peasant Girl Knitting a Stocking (1895), which is the first of his paintings in which he introduces his favorite color, red.

In 1897, he was awarded the status of Artist, but only after much debate, and for his series of portraits rather than his competition painting, Laughter, which depicted Russian women in red dresses in a green meadow.

French newspapers hailed him as "a credit to Russian painting," and Laughter was awarded a gold medal and bought by the Museo d'arte moderno in Venice.

On returning to Russia, Malyavin married Natalia Novaak-Sarich, the daughter of a rich industrialist from Odessa and a private student at the Higher Art School.

He traveled to Paris, and on his return, painted a large family portrait, which he exhibited in January 1911, at the salon of the Union of Russian Artists.