Lot 15: A forest at midday

Ol'ga Antonovna Lagoda-Shishkina (1850-1881) A forest at midday signed in Cyrillic 'O A Lagoda' (lower right) oil on canvas 31¾ x 27 5/8 in. (80.6 x 70.2 cm.)

Following a brief period of study at the Academy of Arts (1875-76), Ol'ga Lagoda-Shishkina studied under I. Shishkin before becoming his wife in 1880. In the shadow of her feted husband like other female artists including Frida Kahlo, Lagoda-Shishkina struggled to gain recognition and it is only recently that her work has been publicly acknowledged.
During her lifetime, Lagoda-Shishkina participated in several exhibitions and in 1899 held her own solo exhibition in St. Petersburg. Today her work is represented in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow ('The girls in the grass', inventory no. 918; 'The rye', inventory no. 917).