First Impressions
How a mind-blowing first commission spurred the artist on
Anna Sokolova
Is there a painting you saw in your formative years that changed everything?
I remember that feeling like it was yesterday! I was studying publishing at university and avidly absorbed all of the information that I could find. I saw Ilya Repin’s painting Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom. I could stare at it for so long it made the museum steward nervous. I’ll still stare at paintings for a long time in Berlin’s Museum Island now. I mentioned Sadko’s painting in the introduction of my book Brilliant Inks, and had a few people email me afterwards, thanking me for introducing the painting to them.