Brief Biography-Isaac Levitan was born in part of Poland, now Lithuania, in 1860. When he was thirteen, he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where his brother studied. His two parents died in 1877, leaving him destitute. However, the school allowed him to stay on with a small stipend because of his poverty. From then on, his work began to receive attention at exhibitions by the school. He gained the patronage of the wealthy art collector Pavel Tretyakov and, in 1891, befriended the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions, known as the Peredvizhniki. He painted mainly countryside landscapes. In 1897, the Russian Academy of Arts elected him, and he became head of the Landscape Studio a year later. For most of his life, Levitan was a close friend and collaborator with the painter Nikolai Chekhov, brother of the playwright Anton Chekhov. He died in 1900. He is considered one of the most distinguished landscape artists in Russia.