Raised in a highly artistic milieu he was encouraged to pursue his talents by his parents and in his childhood he studied in Paris and Moscow under Ilya Repin and in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1880–1885) under Pavel Chistyakov.

Further influences on Serov were the old master paintings he viewed in the museums of Russia and Western Europe, friendships with Mikhail Vrubel and (later) Konstantin Korovin, and the creative atmosphere of the Abramtsevo Colony, to which he was closely connected.

In the development of light and color, the complex harmony of reflections, the sense of atmospheric saturation, and the fresh picturesque perception of the world, there appeared the features of early Russian impressionism (though Serov was not yet aware of works of French impressionists at the time of making those paintings).

Receiving wide popularity, in 1894 Serov joined with the Peredvizhniki (The Itinerants), and took on important commissions, among them portraits of grand duke Pavel Alexandrovich, (1897, Tretyakov Gallery), S.M.

In these truthful, compositionally skillful, and picturesque executions in the grand manner, Serov consistently used linear-rhythmic drawing coupled with decorative color combinations.

At the start of the 20th century, Serov was at a stylistic turning point: features of impressionism disappeared from his work, and his modernistic style developed, but the characteristic truthful and realistic comprehension of the nature of his subjects remained constant.

Valentin Serov died in Moscow on 5 December 1911, from stenocardia (an acute form of angina) that eventually led to cardiac arrest, ending in heart failure due to severe complications.

He taught in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1897 to 1909), and among his students were Pavel Kuznetsov, N. N. Sapunov, Martiros Saryan, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, N. P. Ulyanov, and Konstantin Yuon.

[2][3] Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky ordered the exhibition—and the gallery's opening hours—to be extended, and a field canteen was deployed to provide the people who were standing in the lines with buckwheat porridge and hot tea.