Ilya Efimovich Repin is one of the most famous Russian artists, admired for his «living» portraits, genre compositions, and his artistic manner of painting. He was also a talented memoirist. His autobiographical book is a painting of an entire era in the history of Russia. The art and music critic V. V. Stasov wrote about the book: «What a miracle this is!.. This is how one should write…»
In this edition we’ve included the autobiographical part of «Far, Close». It contains memories of childhood, of the years of study at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, about his teacher and friend I. N. Kramskoy, and about the work on his first significant work—the painting «Burlaks on the Volga».