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Pukirev, Vasily (Vladimirovich)
(b Luzhniki [now in Tula district], 1832; d Moscow, 13 June 1890). Russian painter. He studied at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow (1847–58) and later taught there (1861–73). He first worked as a portrait painter but later turned to genre and history painting. He is best known for his painting Unequal Match (1862; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), which shows the wedding ceremony of an elderly, high-ranking official and a young, visibly unhappy girl. This was one of the celebrated denunciatory pictures of the 1860s, which the liberal public understood as a manifesto against the venal clergy, the unequal position of women and the corrupt bureaucracy. This critical mode, reflecting the general striving for reform in Russia after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, was intended to arouse the dormant social conscience and change society. His other denunciatory works include Collection of Arrears (1869–70) and Damaged Field (1870). Pukirev was also active as an illustrator.
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