Sofya Junker-Kramskaya

Sophia Ivanovna Kramskaya (; 2 September 1867 – 1933) was a Russian painter of the Realist movement.

Biography Sophia Ivanovna Kramskaya was born on 2 September 1867 in Vypolzovo, a village in Pereslavsky Uyezd, Vladimir Governorate, the daughter of the prominent Realist painter Ivan Kramskoi. At the time of her birth, the Kramskoi family were spending the summer at the estate of her father's friend and fellow painter Mikhail Tulinov. While attending a private women's gymnasium, the teenage Kramskaya began to study painting under her father, who had recognised her artistic talents and sought to foster her abilities. Kramskaya, like her father, specialised in portrait painting in the Realism style. A portrait of Ivan Kramskoi, painted shortly before his sudden death in 1887, was one of her earliest works. After her father's death, she took drawing and painting lessons from Alexander Litovchenko, Alexander Sokolov, and Arkhip Kuindzhi. Kramskaya became engaged to Sergey Sergeyevich Botkin, the eldest son of Sergey Botkin, but engagement broke down.

By 1888, Kramskaya was participating in many exhibitions in both Russia and abroad, with her success leading to a steady amount of commissions, mainly from the Russian upper class. In the early 1890s, Kramskaya attended a private painting school in Paris, where she was supervised by the sculptor Mark Antokolsky. Kramskaya exhibited her work at the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

Kramskaya was married to George Junker, a lawyer in Saint Petersburg, from 1901 until his death in 1916.

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