Kotovich-Borisyak Raisa Ivanovna
1895, Kishinev, Moldova – 1923, Moscow
Painter, graphic artist. Born to a military family. Lived in St Petersburg (1908–1914). Attended classes in the Faculty of History and Philology, Higher Women’s (Bestuzhev) courses (1912– 1914); at the same time studied under Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin at Elizaveta Zvantseva’s School of Art. Lived in Moscow (from 1915). Worked at the Main Committee for Museums; registrar at the Novodevichy Convent Museum (early 1920s). Contributed to the exhibitions of the World of Art (1915, 1917), 1st and 2nd Exhibitions of the Trade Union of Painters (1918), exhibition in the Palace of Arts (1919), IV State Exhibition (1919), exhibition in the State Historical Museum (1923, 1924), Fire-Colour (1924), Thirty Moscow Artists (1924).
In 2000, two small solo exhibitions held in the magazine Our Heritage and the Central House of Artists in Moscow aroused the attention to the artist’s work. She was married twice. Her first husband Andrei Borisyak (1885–1962) was a cellist, teacher and student of Pablo Casals. Her second husband Nikolai Pomerantsev (1891–1986) was an outstanding museum worker and restorer. He worked at the Commission for the Protection and Disclosure of Ancient Monuments directed by Igor Grabar (from 1918); art historian in the Moscow Kremlin; registrar in the Armoury; head of the Kremlin monuments (1919–1934).
In 1934, he was sentenced to three years in exile in the Russian North for the “opposition to the demolition of useless ancient monuments”, served his sentence in Velsk. He returned to Moscow in 1946, worked at the Central Restoration Workshops. Fragments of the diary of Raisa Kotovich-Borisyak with commentary and afterword by N. A. Pome – rantseva are published in the book: “Teoretiko-lite – raturnye itogi XX veka”. Vol. IV: Chitatel’: problemy vospriyatiya. Moscow, 2005, pp. 578–589.