The I. Trutnev Vilna Drawing School

After the Polack Jesuit Academy was abolished in 1820 and Vilna (Vilnius) University was closed in 1832, there remained no art education institution in the region. Ivan Trutnev, an alumnus of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, a teacher of drawing at the Vicebsk male gymnasium, distinguished by drawing ‘Russian’ ancient architectural monuments, was invited to set up a drawing school.

The Vilna (Vilnius) Drawing School was opened on 6 December 1866. It was divided into two classes: those of trades-cum-drawing and of painting. Representatives of all social estates irrespective of their gender or religious denomination could attend the school from the age of 12. Drawing was taught on the principles of academic drawing while painting was based on life studies. The school was popular; it was attended by students of various ethnic communities: Russian, Polish, Jewish, and Lithuanian. Students from Belarus (Stanislaw Dombrowski, Yazep Drazdovich, Isaak Itkind and many other ) attended the Vilna Drawing School throughout its existence.

The Drawing School in Vilna existed until 1915. It did not fulfil its utilitarian task to train icon-painters or the ideological task to convert local art according to the official cultural policy of the Russian government. However, its alumni like the artists of the School of Paris Michel Kikoïne, Chaïm Soutine, Pinchus Krémègne, Sam Zarfin made the school famous all over the world. Their lives were different, but Belarus for them was a cradle of creativity, while Vilna was the city where their youth dreams were coming true.