Nadya Repina, born in 1874 in Paris, was the goddaughter of Alexey Petrovich Bogolyubov, a well-known Russian artist (1824–1896), and a daughter of equally famous artist Ilya Repin. The two masters were tied with a long friendship. In the 1870s, Alexey Petrovich acted as protector of graduate pensioners of the Imperial Academy of Arts in France. Young Repin was among them. Bogolyubov was always genuinely involved in the lives of his young colleagues, never denied them his advice, organised sales of their pictures and commissions of new ones for them. Bogolyubov’s studio in Boulevard des Batignolles, which was called “Russian Paris”, had for many years been the centre of the Russian artistic colony, the venue of Russian artists’ meetings — Repin, Polenov, Kharlamov, Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, Beggrov and others.
It was not by accident that Ilya Yefimovich chose his mentor for his newly-born daughter’s godfather, neither was it by accident that in 1882 he gave Bogolyubov the portrait of his six-year old Nadya. The Portrait of Nadya Repina belonged to Alexey Petrovich’ favourite works and was always kept in his house in Paris. In 1897, according to the artist’s will, it was given to the Radishchev Museum in Saratov, among a number of other canvases which had been most dear to him. Up to this day, the portrait is considered to be the “hallmark” of the Museum. Nadya’s portrait ‘being fully complete as a picture, looks much like a study – so true to life and unaffected is the manner of rendering the state of the awakening girl. The little figure of the child … takes up nearly the whole canvas; the fragmented nature of the composition enhances the impression of a chance moment captured by the artist.’ According to Igor Grabar’s account of how the portrait was created, “once the girl fell asleep in an armchair with her head drooping to the side, and he was so fascinated by that unexpectedly beautiful sight that he immediately sat down to paint her. Later she had to do a lot of posing, and the pose was not easy at all as the work is painted exceptionally carefully and admiringly”.
This portrait has always attracted those who studied Repin’s art. In literature one sometimes comes across other titles of it: Girl in Pink; Sick Girl. The Girl in Pink belongs to the best children portraits done by Repin. ‘His rendering of his daughter’s real appearance and the charm of untroubled childhood is very endearing. The portrait of Nadya Repina, full of sincere admiration and spontaneity, seems to have been done at one go, but behind virtuosity of the brush and light artistry there a lot of hard work at the image’.
