Bogdan Wenig

Johann Gottlieb Wenig, russified as Bogdan Bogdanovich Wenig (30 July 1837 – 13 May 1872 ) was a Baltic German painter in the Academical style, active in Saint Petersburg during Tsar Alexander II's reign. The younger brother to fellow painter Carl Wenig, he was a second-rate master most remembered among the fourteen protestants led by Ivan Kramskoi into leaving the Imperial Academy of Arts and establishing the Artel of Artists in 1863.

Biography His father, Gottlieb (1804–1874), was a music teacher and organist at St. Nicholas Church in Reval. His mother Agathe (1808–1895), an amateur artist, was the aunt of Peter Carl Fabergé. In 1848, he and his family moved to Saint Petersburg, where his father had found employment with the Directorate of the Imperial Theatres. In 1851, he joined his brother Carl at the Imperial Academy of Arts, studying historical painting with Fyodor Bruni.

He was especially noted for his draftsmanship; receiving three small silver medals (1854, 1856, 1857), two large silver medals (1856, 1857), and a small gold medal (1859); in addition to these, he was rewarded a prize for his sketch depicting the Kiss of Judas (1862).

He formally graduated from the Imperial Academy in 1864 with the title of "Artist 2nd Class". In 1865, together with Kramskoi and Nikolay Koshelev, he worked on painting the main dome at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. This work aside, he mostly had his recognition as portrait painter. He died in St. Petersburg, aged thirty-four; he was interred into the Volkovo Cemetery.

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