Brief Biography-Nikolaevich (Nikolayevich) Kramskoy (Kramskoi) picked up drawing at a very young age and, as a teenager, received instruction from an icon artist. At twenty, the Saint Petersburg Imperial Academy of Fine Arts admitted him. However, he rebelled against a neoclassical instruction format and formed a breakaway group opposed to Academic art. On the other hand, Ilya Repin, was a contemporary who remained with the Academic ideal.
The Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions, called the Itinerants, roamed Russia exhibiting their works. Kramskoy travelled through Europe, and in Russia, he arranged exhibitions for the group. He did portraits of notable people and painted religious works, while the renowned art patron Pavel Tretyakov collected many paintings. He became an Academician at the Saint Petersburg Academy in 1869. Kramskoy died with his brush in his hand in 1887. Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Christ in the Desert, Portrait of Leo Tolstoy, and Ivan Shishkin.