Russia is such a vast place and so much of it remains unknown to many of us in the West. It is land mass of many cultures and traditions, and a great artistic history; but unless you have specifically studied Russian art you tend to know little about it. 
If you say Russian Art to many people they will either think of those beautiful little religious icons from the middle ages or, the Faberge eggs, the little folk art dolls that sit one inside the other or the propaganda art from the socialist era.
This artist is Russian and produces the most beautifully sensitively drawn nudes and portraits. I came across a simple drawing of a nude and found myself returning to it again and again.
I didn’t know the artist but as my favourite subject matter for drawing is the human body, I appreciate the skill that goes into creating skin tones and facial expressions. Its not easy, and this female Russian artist does it beautifully with sensitivity and tenderness.
Excellent write up in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinaida_Serebriakova
Zinaida Yevgenyevna Serebriakova; female Russian artist born December 10, 1884, died September 19, 1967 was among the first female Russian painters of distinction. She came from one of Russian foremost artistic families and was born on the estate of Neskuchnoye near Kharkov (now Kharkiv, Ukraine)
She belonged to the artistic Benois family. Her grandfather, Nicholas Benois, was a well known respected architect, chairman of the Society of Architects and member of the Russian Academy of Science. Her uncle, Alexandre Benois, was a famous painter, founder of the Mir iskusstva art group.
Her father, Yevgeny Nikolayevich Lanceray, was a well-known sculptor, and her mother had quite a talent for drawing. One of Zinaida's brothers, Nikolay Yevgenyevich Lanceray, was an architect, and her other brother, Yevgeny Yevgenyevich Lanceray, was a master of monumental painting and graphic art in Soviet Russia. .The Russian-English actor and writer Peter Ustinov was also a distant relative.
More information here
http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/serebriakova.php
‘’Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova was a Modernist Russian painter, and was one of the best known and most highly regarded of her time’’
More information here
http://voutsadakis.com/GALLERY/ALMANAC/Year2010/Dec2010/12102010/2010dec10a.html
‘’In 1900 she graduated from a women's gymnasium (equivalent to grammar school or high school), and entered the art school founded by Princess M.K. Tenisheva. She studied under Repin in 1901, and under portrait artist Braz between 1903 and 1905. She then travelled abroad and between 1902 1903 spent time in Italy. Between 1905 – 1906 she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.’’
More information here
http://russianartconsultancy.com/Drawings_and_Watercolours.html
‘’It is often in an artist’s drawings that his personality is most directly reflected. Drawings can be the first tentative workings, “ideas in line” that are then abandoned, or later become a picture on canvas. They can also be highly finished works of art in themselves, polished and presented to the public without thoughts of further development. In both cases, the immediacy of the artist’s contact with the sheet of paper lends an intimacy that is sometimes missing from a large and finished canvas. Watercolours, similarly, have traditionally been held in lower esteem than pictures in oils, although they require no lesser mastery of handling, technique, and composition.’’
