Kolesov Alexei Mikhailovich (1834-1902)

 Alexis was born in Kolesov known for its artisans people Kovrov Vladimir province.
Art education in shortly before established (1843), the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture, in which he entered in 1851. Already in 1856 for "Portrait of an old man," the young artist receives from the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts (at the relevant time, it had the right to assign the Academy "ranks" the graduates of educational institutions) the title of class artist (not so hot rank, but otherwise outside the Academy was not available).

 Followed by years of work and, consequently, the development of skill. Only in 1876 for a series of portraits of famous people in Moscow, among them - Portrait of a historian SM Soloviev, A. wheel gets the title of the class artist. He lives and works in Moscow, in addition to portraits (should highlight different great realism and skill of portraits of artists Zaryanko SK , SN Ammosova , Ivan Shishkin , AK Savrasova and traveler PP Semenov- Tian Shan).
  Writes genre scenes with simple plot, "read the cards" (1856), "Girl with a broken vase" (1858), "Peasant, serving soldier to drink" (1859), "The Hunter" (1864) and others .

The artist is life lacks stars from the sky, but has a very high reputation as a skilled master. But in the 1880s in the work of A. Kolesov, substantial changes: it departs from secular painting and begins to paint icons. His success in the new for a fact so obvious that soon the artist begins to head Moscow School of icon painting.