Ivan Kramskoi, one of the most talented Russian portraitists of the 19th Century was one of the leaders of the Wanderers Society which was opposed to dogmatism in art. He started working as a photographic retoucher in St. Petersburg in 1853 but his friends spotting his talent for drawing advised him to study and in 1857 he was accepted by the Academy of Arts.

In 1863 he was the leader of the Art students who opposed the traditional academic system by refusing to paint pictures on the required theme 'Feast at Valhalla'. Their request being turned down they left the Academy and founded the Peredvizniki (Wanderers) Society, which became a synonym for Russian realist art.

The most valuable part of Kramskoi's artistic legacy is the portraits of his contemporaries, his best work being certainly the portrait of Nekrasov one of the leading representatives of the democratic intelligentsia of the 1870's painted in 1877 and now in the Tretiakov Gallery.