Stepan Fedorovich Kolesnikoff (Russian Empire 1879 – Yugoslavia 1955)
Stepan Fedorovich Kolesnikoff was a distinguished Realist painter. Kolesnikoff ’s artistic potentials were recognized early. In 1897 he starts attending an artistic school in Odessa, one of the topmost of its kind in the country. In 1903, Kolesnikoff is accepted on the Imperial Academy of Arts, where his paintings regularly won prizes on the annual Spring exhibitions. His prolific work in oil and especially in gouache won him the highest regards from the leading Russian artist of his day Ilya Repin.
In 1919 he and his family emigrate to the Balkans, and from 1920 he settles in Belgrade, where he will spend most of his life of an emigrant. Kolesnikoff was promptly welcomed on the royal court of his new country. Among other work, he was given a state assignment to lead the restoration works on numerous paintings and frescoes.