Self portrait with letter

Lydia Dmitrievsky was born in St. Petersburg and educated in Moscow before the revolution. In the early twenties she studied in Berlin with Aleksandr Arkhipenko, the innovative sculptor and artist.

Dmitrievsky's work is influenced by Russian and German radical expressionism, and can be compared to that of Tamara de Lempicka and Natan Al'tman. However, in terms of colour, she uses a distinctly Russian palette that distinguishes Dmitrievsky from other artists of that period.