Ilya Efimovich Repin was born in Chuguev, in the Ukraine, in the family of a soldier-settler. He received his first lessons in art in 1858, when he started working for I. M. Bunakov, a talented icon painter from Chuguev. Commissions for portraits and religious paintings allowed Repin to collect enough money to go to St. Petersburg with the goal of entering the Academy of Arts. He arrived in the capital in 1863 and enrolled in the School of Drawing attached to the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. Working with Kramskoi, in a year the young artist developed his skills sufficiently to be accepted to the Academy.

In May 1870 Repin went on a boat trip down the Volga during which he made sketches for his Barge-haulers on the Volga (The Volga Boatmen). A year later the artist finished his schooling at the Academy. His graduation work, The Resurrection of Jairus' Daughter, won the Gold Medal and a six-year scholarship (including three years of travel abroad). After traveling through Europe and staying in Paris (1872-76), Repin returned to Russia. He spent a year in Chuguev, making sketches for his famous Religious Procession in the Kursk Province.

The next six years (1876-82) Repin lived in Moscow, trying to get along with the Academy, the Mamontov circle, and his old friends Stasov and Kramskoi. Tired of their constant squabbles, he moved to St. Petersburg. He made several bio trips to Europe—in 1883, 89, 94, and 1900. He taught at the St. Petersburg Academy (1894-1907) and was an influential member of the Wanderers. In 1900, during a trip to Paris, Repin met Natalia Nordman, the "love of his life" (Repin was separated from his wife), and moved to her home, Penaty (Penates), in Kuokkala (Finland), located about an hour's train ride from St. Petersburg. Together, they organized the famous Wednesdays at the Penaty which attracted the creative elite of Russia. When Nordman died in 1914, she left the estate to the Academy, but Repin occupied it for the next sixteen years. Handicapped by the atrophy of his right hand, Repin could not produce works of the same quality as those, which brought him fame. Although he trained himself to paint with his left hand, he lived his last years under a constant financial strain. Since the artist did not accept the Revolution of 1917, he did not want to go back to Russia, even though in 1926 a delegation sent by the Ministry of Education of the Soviet Union helped him financially and tried to entice him to return. To acknowledge and commemorate Repin's artistic achievement, in 1948 Kuokkala was renamed Repino.

As Fan and Stephen Jan Parker note in their monograph on Repin, "Western art historians and critics have minimized Repin's achievements and contributions either because his very "national" identity has not been grasped, or because—and this is most likely—Repin was neither a technical innovator nor the creator of a school of painting. bioover, he was a realist and not a modernist. Yet in the esteem of both prerevolutionary and Soviet Russia, Repin occupies a position alongside Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Musorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Ilya Repin - Paintings & Drawings Vol 1 by Ilya Repin (Author, Illustrator) – Paperback: 74 pages; Independently published (May 23, 2018)

The artworks of Russian realist painter Ilya Yefimovich Repin (5 August 1844 – 29 September 1930).

Ilya Repin: Selected Paintings (Volume 2) by Ivan Petrov – Paperback: 96 pages; CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1st edition (Apr 18, 2017)

Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844 – 1930) was a leading Russian painter and sculptor of the Peredvizhniki artistic school. An important part of his work is dedicated to his native country, Ukraine. His realistic works often expressed great psychological depth and exposed the tensions within the existing social order.

Ilya Repin by Grigori Sternine, Elena Kirillina – Hardcover: 200 pages; Parkstone Press (Jun 1, 2011)

This book invites you to discover the wonderful artworks of this progressive realist painter whose work would eventually define and influence social artistic movements in the future.

Ilya Repin by Grigori Sternine, Elena Kirillina Hardcover: 200 pages; Parkstone Press (Jun 1, 2011)

Ilya Repin was a leading Russian painter and sculptor who is most famous for his involvement with the Russian Itinerant movement. This avant-garde movement rebelled against the formalism and tradition of the official Academy of Fine Arts and proclaimed the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Repin’s most powerful works expressed great psychological depth (Ivan the Terrible and His Son) and exposed tensions within the social order (Barge Haulers on the Volga) of his time. This book invites you to discover the wonderful artworks of this progressive realist painter whose work would eventually define and influence social artistic movements in the future.

Ilya Repin by Grigory Sternin, Yelena Kirillina – Hardcover: 174 pages; Parkstone Company, May 1996

This is apparently a very rare and coveted book since it is priced very high when available.

Ilya Repin and the World of Russian Art by Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier – Hardcover: Columbia University Press, 1990

Biography of Russia's foremost 19th-century artist, whose great talent established realism as the national painting style, charts his eventful career, while drawing attention to distinctive features of Russian artistic culture between the 1860s and 1920s.

The Russian Vision: The Art of Ilya Repin by David Jackson – Hardcover: 216 pages; Antique Collectors Club (Oct 30, 2015)

Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is a key figure of Russian nineteenth-century realism; his career spanned a period of huge cultural, social and political change, bearing witness to the challenge to the Russian autocracy, the coming of the October Revolution and the dawn of the Soviet Union. From humble peasant beginnings Repin rose to a place of artistic pre-eminence and international acclaim and was the most important influence in shaping a distinctly Russian school of art.

Ilya Repin: 1844-1930 by Dr. David Jackson – Hardcover: 288 pages; Exhibitions International (Oct 30, 2006)

This first comprehensive survey of Ilya Repinís work to be overseen by a Western art historian features a wealth of previously unseen paintings, eye-catching and dramatic works that bring to life Russian society in the last years of the tsars. Repin, who lived from 1844 to 1930, was the finest and most celebrated painter of his generation, and an important influence in shaping a distinctly Russian school within nineteenth-century Realism. His often-controversial works addressed subjects including the hard lives of the peasants, the fates of revolutionary activists, loaded episodes of Russian history and some of the nationís greatest cultural figures, many of whom he counted as personal friends, including Tolstoy, Musorgsky and Gorky. His vibrant, colorful and topical canvases offer a fascinating panorama of the issues that were swirling in the minds of his contemporaries, and an unusual view of all strata of life during this crucial period of historical change.

The Ilya Repin Exhibition: Introduction and Catalogue of the Paintings. Held at the Kingore Galleries, New York City, 1921 by Christian Brinton – Paperback: 82 pages; Adamant Media Corporation (Oct 17, 2006)

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1921 edition by Redfield-Kendrick-Odell Company, New York.

Ilya Repin: Russia's Secret by Henk van Os, Sjeng Scheijen – Hardcover: 191 pages; B.V. Waanders Uitgeverji (Jun 30, 2005)

Regarded as the leader of the Realist School, artist Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is seen as Russia's national painter. This is an overview of his work.

Realism Master: Ilya Repin by Arthur Weis – Paperback: 62 pages; Independently published (Jul 23, 2019)