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Three Female Artists Who Defied the Odds
Inspiring stories of creative perseverance
Every creative act involves an element of discovery, a moving beyond yourself into something unexpected.
It also means taking a risk — at which point many of us can stumble. We weigh the cost against the benefit. We pause, procrastinate, think twice.
So how do you persist in your creativity when things get tough or doubt might hinder you? Here are three stellar artists who despite facing adversity, ensured that quitting was not an option…
Zinaida Serebryakova
Before her life was turned upside down, Zinaida Serebriakova painted this light-filled self-portrait, titled At the Dressing-Table. Made in 1909 and replete with signs of bourgeois femininity, it became her first artistic success and was purchased for the Tretyakov Gallery collection in Moscow.
Serebriakova (née Lansere) was a Russian painter who grew up in the tumult of the early decades of the 20th century and face a set of challenges particular to her time.
In 1905, she married her cousin Boris Serebriakov, an engineer with whom she had four children. However, a contented and creatively prosperous life was fiercely interrupted by the war and, more notably, the October Revolution of 1917.
Fearful for their lives, the Serebriakova family fled to Kharkiv, leaving the family estate to be ransacked and burned.
Serebriakova’s financial hardships were multiplied when her husband Boris was arrested and succumbed to typhus in 1919. With Serebriakova now destitute and responsible for four children and her ailing mother, the whole family faced starvation. She survived by taking on various odd jobs in Kharkiv, and later in Petrograd (present-day Saint Petersburg).
The expense of oil paints made painting almost impossible. But Serebriakova continued to make art…
