Dmitry Ivanovich Besperchy, also known as Dmytro Bezperchy, was born in 1825 in Borisovka. His father was a serf and icon painter Ivan Andreyevich Besperchy. When the young man was 16 years old, his father received a paper making him and his whole family free. He began to teach drawing at the Provincial Gymnasium of Kursk. Dmitry acquired his initial painting skills from his father. Dmitry became a non-matriculated student at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. During his studies he became interested in book design and tried his hand at illustrating works of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin and Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov. When the first volume of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s “Dead Souls” was published in 1842, Besperchy became one of the first illustrators of this poem in prose.
In 1843, Dmitry began to attend a bust-painting class, where students were engaged in drawing plaster castings, and studied at the studio of Karl Pavlovich Bryullov. He also took lessons from Pavel Andreyevich Fedotov. At that time, the young artist mastered various techniques and worked enthusiastically during summer holidays, creating sketches of typical representatives of ordinary folk. Besperchy’s drawings created from memory and imagination seem rather weak, but his works painted from life, on the contrary, are energetic and expressive. Thanks to his portraits and drawings painted from life, at the end of his studies he received the title of a non-class artist of history and portrait painting. He left for the city of Nizhyn and got a job as a drawing teacher at a gymnasium.
In 1850, Dmitry Ivanovich was transferred from Nizhyn to Kharkiv, where he began teaching at the Second Kharkiv Gymnasium and at a Realschule (a type of secondary school). Kharkiv became Dmitry Ivanovich’s second homeland, although visits to Borisovka invariably inspired new themes and plots in his art.
Besperchy worked a lot as a painter, watercolorist, graphic artist, and book illustrator. In his landscapes, one can often recognize the views of Borisovka, the forest, and the valley of the Vorskla River. Dmitry Ivanovich also painted Crimean and Ukrainian churches. However, Besperchy found his main vocation in teaching. Henryk Hektor Siemiradzki, Serhii Ivanovych Vasylkivsky, Mikhail Stepanovich Tkachenko, Petro Oleksiiovych Levchenko, Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin and the sculptor Vladimir Alexandrovich Beklemishev studied under him.
In 1843, Dmitry began to attend a bust-painting class, where students were engaged in drawing plaster castings, and studied at the studio of Karl Pavlovich Bryullov. He also took lessons from Pavel Andreyevich Fedotov. At that time, the young artist mastered various techniques and worked enthusiastically during summer holidays, creating sketches of typical representatives of ordinary folk. Besperchy’s drawings created from memory and imagination seem rather weak, but his works painted from life, on the contrary, are energetic and expressive. Thanks to his portraits and drawings painted from life, at the end of his studies he received the title of a non-class artist of history and portrait painting. He left for the city of Nizhyn and got a job as a drawing teacher at a gymnasium.
In 1850, Dmitry Ivanovich was transferred from Nizhyn to Kharkiv, where he began teaching at the Second Kharkiv Gymnasium and at a Realschule (a type of secondary school). Kharkiv became Dmitry Ivanovich’s second homeland, although visits to Borisovka invariably inspired new themes and plots in his art.
Besperchy worked a lot as a painter, watercolorist, graphic artist, and book illustrator. In his landscapes, one can often recognize the views of Borisovka, the forest, and the valley of the Vorskla River. Dmitry Ivanovich also painted Crimean and Ukrainian churches. However, Besperchy found his main vocation in teaching. Henryk Hektor Siemiradzki, Serhii Ivanovych Vasylkivsky, Mikhail Stepanovich Tkachenko, Petro Oleksiiovych Levchenko, Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin and the sculptor Vladimir Alexandrovich Beklemishev studied under him.
