One of the greatest Russian portrait painters, Serov was born on January 19, 1865, in the family of the composer A. N. Serov.
As a child he lived in St Petersburg, but he made frequent trips abroad. In 1874 he travelled to Paris with his mother and frequented the studio of the Russian Realist painter, Iliya Repin. In 1875 the art patron Savva Mamontov invited Serov and his mother to settle at Abrametovo outside Moscow, where he again had the opportunity to study under Repin and to meet other artists in the Mamontov circle.
The late Impressionist landscapes and figure studies of Konstantin Korovin he saw at Abramtsevo had a lasting
influence on the young Serov. From 1880 to 1885 he studied at the Academy of Art, St Petersburg, under Pavel Chistyakov.
During the 1880s Serov also travelled abroad and became aware of French Impressionism. He began to use bright colours in
portraits of figures seen in dappled sunlight and shade, as in his portrait of Vera Mamontov, Girl with Peaches
and a portrait of Mariya Simonovich, Girl in Sunlight.
Russians were so unfamiliar
with French Impressionism at this time that when Pavel Tret’yakov immediately bought the Girl in Sunlight.
He traveled much, participated in exhibitions in Russia and abroad.
In 1897-1909, Serov taught in Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Serov became the most successful and brilliant portraitist in Russia of the 1890s and first decade of the 20th century. In 1903, he was elected the academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
Serov died in 1911.