About Ivan Shishkin
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was a Russian landscape painter and graphic artist, one of the most famous landscape painters of the post-reform era, and the creator of the iconic painting Morning in a Pine Forest. He was an academician, professor and full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts, as well as a professor and head of the landscape workshop at the Higher Art School (1894–1895). He was also one of the founding members of the Peredvizhniki movement. At the age of 12 Shishkin was enrolled in the First Kazan Boys' Gymnasium but after five years of study he returned home to Yelabuga, where he lived for four years. During his first year at the Academy Shishkin was awarded two small silver medals: one for his painting View in the Vicinity of St Petersburg (1856) and another for drawings completed during the summer in Dubki. In 1859 he was awarded a small gold medal for his landscape Gorge on Valaam and finally, in 1860, he earned the large gold medal for two paintings of the same title, View of Valaam Island.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.