Elena Nikandrovna Klokacheva (Russian: Елена Никандровна Клокачёва, also known as Klakachova (Клакачова) and Klakacheva (Клакачева); Saint Petersburg, Russia, 25 November 1871 – not before 1943), was a painter mainly known by one of the few existing portraits of Rasputín, now at the Hermitage. In 1942 and 1943, during the Siege of Leningrad, she draw some portraits of Spanish military physicians belonging to the Wehrmacht Blue Division.
Biography
Elena Nikandrovna Klokacheva was born in a distinguished navy officers family. Fedot Alekséevich Klokachev (Федот Алексеевич Клокачёв,1739-1783), Vice admiral of the Black Sea fleet, was Klokacheva's great-great-grandfather. Her father, Nikandr Nikolaevich Klokachev (Никандр Николаевич Клокачёв), was Rear admiral.[1]
Since 1902 she appeared in the directory All Petersburg (Весь Петербург), sometimes as Klokacheva and others as Klakacheva, with different addresses. Since 1906 she lived in Serguiévskaya street that changed its name to Tchaikovsky street in 1923. From 1917 on, her name disappears from the directory.[2] Since 1922 she lived in Pavlovsk.
In 1910, the writer Evdokiia Nagródskaia (Евдокия Аполлоновна Нагродская) dedicated to Klokachova her novel The Wrath of Dionysus(Гнев Диониса, Saint Petersburg,Тип. Н.Я. Стойковой, 1910).
In 1942 and 1943, the Spanish Blue Division, participating in the Siege of Leningrad, had a field dressing station in Pavlovsk. Klokacheva made charcoal portraits of some of the Spanish military physicians on assignment there. Their families hold two of these portraits in Spain.
Klokacheva took part in some of the exhibitions of the Peredvizhniki (The Wanderers or The Itinerants) group whose best known member was Ilya Repin.
In 1901 she was entitled "artist” (Russian: художника) for her picture “Behind the scenes” (За кулисами). The academy had accepted full membership of women just in 1873.[3]
At the beginning of the 20th century she traveled to Tunisia, Sicily and to Russian Turkestan[4] from where he drew inspiration for many of his Orientalist-style works.
In 1907, the academy acquired her work At the circus; her picture Hard days and a portrait of her friend, the art historian Olga Bazankur (Ольга Георгиевна Базанкур-Штейнфельд) were exhibited in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.[5]
In 1909 she took part in the spring exhibition at the Imperial Academy of Arts with her work “Satyr and nymph”.[6]
