Osip (Joseph)
Emmanuilovich Braz

To learn he started to draw at the Odessa drawing school at KK Kostandi; in 1890-94 he continued his education in Munich, in a private school of Hungarian artist S. holloshi. In Munich, and then during a trip to France and Holland, he studied the old masters, acquainted with modern European art. Already established artist Braz in 1895 entered the St. Petersburg Academy of arts in Studio Ie Repin. In 1897 Braz was awarded the title of artist, but, contrary to academic rules, not a special competition for the painting and for a series of portraits. One of them - "Portrait of E. M. Martynova" (1896) - acquired P. Tretyakov. He also commissioned artist image Komissarzhevskaya and Anton Chekhov. Portrait of Chekhov (1898) has received conflicting assessments of his contemporaries, but is now the only lifetime complete portrait of the writer.

Osip Braz was born and raised in Odessa. To learn he started to draw at the Odessa drawing school at KK Kostandi; in 1890-94 he continued his education in Munich, in a private school of Hungarian artist S. holloshi. In Munich, and then during a trip to France and Holland, he studied the old masters, acquainted with modern European art. Already established artist Braz in 1895 entered the St. Petersburg Academy of arts in Studio Ie Repin. Then he began to participate in exhibitions. His work, according to artist and art historian A. N. Benoit, at that time distinguished the "maturity of taste and some kind of "Europeanism"". In 1897 Braz was awarded the title of artist, but, contrary to academic rules, not a special competition for the painting and for a series of portraits. One of them - "Portrait of E. M. Martynova" (1896) - acquired P. Tretyakov. He also commissioned artist image Komissarzhevskaya and Anton Chekhov. Portrait of Chekhov (1898) has received conflicting assessments of his contemporaries, but is now the only lifetime complete portrait of the writer.

In the workshop Repin Braz friends with young artists included soon in the artistic Association "World of art", and subsequently became a permanent member of its exhibitions. Under the influence of the "world of art", the artist turned to the chart, doing lithography and etching, in particular carried portraits and landscapes. Very popular exquisite portraits of women Braz, written the interiors, which featured a free and elegant style of painting. He created a whole gallery of portraits of Russian artists of the late XIX - early XX century: Leonid Pasternak, A. P. Sokolov, K. A. Somov, K. K. Pervukhina, I. Y. Ginzburg, etc. After a stay abroad in the years 1907-11 he manner Braz has become more free, and color - saturated. In this vein filled landscapes of the Crimea and Finland relating to the 1910's. In 1914, Braz was elected academician of arts.

The artist was a great connoisseur and collector of art. In 1916, it incorporated as a specialist in the composition of the Commission for the restoration of paintings of the Hermitage, and in 1918 he was appointed curator of the Museum. One of the masterpieces of his collection - a painting by Jean-Baptiste Chardin's "still life with attributes of the arts" - the Hermitage must Braz. The artist found the painting in a thrift store, restored it and determine authorship.

Braz has trained many artists. Since the end of the 1890s he taught at his own Studio (it was called for, for example, 3. Serebriakova), at the Drawing school of the OPH (1902-04), in the 1920s - in Vhuteine.

In 1924, Braz was exiled to Novgorod, where the efforts of friends back in 1926, In 1928, he moved to Germany, where his family was. Subsequently he settled in Paris. Knowledge and experience allowed the artist to successfully run an antique trade and gather a good collection of works of art.