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Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin
About museum
Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin — a Russian sculptor, an academician and a full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts. He was born in the village of Svechkino in the Yaroslavl Governorate into a family of serf peasants. Opekushin received his first technical skills from his father — a modeller at a bronze foundry. In the early 1850s he moved to Saint Petersburg and worked in a cooperative of modellors and plasterers. For some time he studied at the Drawing School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Artists, and then in the sculpture workshop of D. I. Iensen. With Iensen's assistance, in 1859 Opekushin was granted his freedom and permission to attend the sculpture class of the Imperial Academy of Arts.
In 1862 Opekushin received the small silver medal for the bas-relief “The Angel Announcing the Nativity of Christ to the Shepherds” and the small gold medal for modelling from life. In 1872 Opekushin was awarded the title of academician for the sculptures “Peter I” and the portrait of Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich. In 1895 he became a full member of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Opekushin was known as a monumental sculptor and created monuments to many prominent figures, including A. S. Pushkin, M. Y. Lermontov, Emperors Alexander II and Alexander III, as well as K. E. Baer. Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin died on 4 March 1923 in the village of Rybnitsy in the Yaroslavl Governorate.
Date of birth
28 November 1838
Date of death
04 March 1923
Occupation
Sculptor