Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts

[3] During the Society's existence, many students of the Imperial Academy of Arts also received financial support, including Vasily Vereshchagin, Firs Zhuravlev, Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Mikhail Clodt, Ivan Kramskoi, Lev Lagorio, Kirill Lemokh, Konstantin Makovsky, Leonid Solomatkin, Konstantin Flavitsky and Pavel Chistyakov.

The Society provided a school with workshops, a library, an exhibition hall and (after 1870, when it moved into permanent quarters) a museum, as well as playing a key role in disseminating copies of artists' works through etchings, lithographs and woodcuts.

[3] That same year, according to the Society's records, their exhibitions had attracted 56,000 visitors, works were sold to the value of 33,900 Rubles and there were 247 participating members.

In 1924, it came under control of the "State Academy of History of Material Culture" (GAIMK), which dissolved the Society in 1929 on the grounds of "non-conformance".

In addition, he hired well-known artists as instructors, including Ivan Bilibin, Dmitry Kardovsky and Arkady Rylov.

The Society's building in 1912, on Bolshaya Morskaya in Saint Petersburg; currently occupied by the Russian Artists' Union. It is a registered monument of the "Cultural Heritage of the Russian Federation" [ 1 ]
Pyotr Andreyevich Kikin, founding patron and
first Chairman of the Society.
Portrait by George Dawe
Nicholas Roerich (c.1940)