Shishkin Ivan is a Russian painter, draftsman, engraver and etcher, one of the main masters of realistic landscape of the second part of 20th century. He was an academician, professor, head of landscape studio of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.  He also was one of founder-members of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniki).

Ivan Shishkin entered the Moscow school of painting and sculpture. After the graduation, since 1857 he continued his education at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts where he studied in the class of landscape professor S. Vorobyov. The artist worked with love a lot in graphics. Especially perfect are the works executed in a mixed technique: sauce, whitewash, where the artist achieves great softness, painterliness, varied gradation of tone. One of the best paintings in the collection – Winter in a Forest   –  belongs to such works.