Fechin arrived in the United States in 1923, at the age of 42, as an established and acclaimed Russian artist. His singular success as a portraitist and teacher in America influenced many of his contemporaries, and his influence continues to be felt through the work of his many students and followers.

Fechin was born in Kazan, a city on the Volga River rich with mingled Russian and Mongol cultures, and his artistic talent was recognized early in life. After training at the Art School of Kazan, Fechin entered the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg in 1900. There, he was profoundly influenced by the psychologically penetrating portraits of his teacher, Ilya Repin (1844-1930), Russia's preeminent realist painter.

In 1909, after graduation from the academy, Fechin received a scholarship that enabled him to travel to Rome, Vienna, and Paris before returning to Kazan to take up a teaching post at the art school. One of Fechin's submissions to the 1910 International Exhibition in Munich was awarded a gold medal and, in the same year, the artist was invited to send paintings to the annual International Exhibition held at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.

Fechin's entries in the Carnegie International Exhibition immediately caught the eye of Pittsburgh collector William S. Stimmel (1864-1935), who began purchasing Fechin's paintings on a regular basis. The enthusiastic collector wrote to Fechin urging him to come to the United States. Because of the outbreak of World War I and the chaos following the Bolshevik revolution, Fechin and his family were unable to accept Stimmel's invitation until 1923.

Fechin's American career began in New York with a teaching post at the New York Academy of Art and a number of commissions obtained through Stimmel's connections.

 

Due in part to poor health, Fechin moved to Taos, New Mexico, in 1927. There he established a studio and continued the successful teaching career begun in New York. With the breakup of his marriage in 1933, Fechin moved to Los Angeles, where he remained, except for occasional trips to exotic locales, teaching and painting prolifically until his death in 1955.

Fechin's free and spontaneous painting style was established even before his graduation from the Imperial Academy. Lady in Pink is a good example of the procedures the artist continued to refine throughout his career. The carefully observed facial features seem to emerge from a maelstrom of heavily scumbled paint. The coquettish pose, the vibrant sheen of the dress, and the setting of the painting itself are suggested, rather than defined, by the swirling strokes of brush and palette knife. Fechin counseled his students to work on the entire canvas continuously, rather than completing a section at a time. The coruscating facets of color appear to be set in motion by the energetic application of paint.