Rosalind Polly Blakesley


Rosalind Polly Blakesley is Professor of Russian and European Art at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and co-founder of the Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre. A Syndic of the Fitzwilliam Museum and former Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery in London, she has curated exhibitions in Britain, Russia and the USA, including Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky at the National Portrait Gallery in 2016.
Blakesley’s most recent book, The Russian Canvas: Painting in Imperial Russia 1757-1881, was awarded the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize, the Art Newspaper Russia Best Book Award, and Honorable Mention from the Heldt Prize Committee for Best Book by a Woman in Slavic Studies. Other books include Russia and the Arts, The Arts and Crafts Movement and Russian Genre Painting in the Nineteenth Century, as well as the co-edited volumes From Realism to the Silver Age, Russian Art and the West, and An Imperial Collection: Women Artists from the State Hermitage Museum. In 2017 Blakesley was awarded the Pushkin Medal by the Russian Federation for services to Anglo-Russian relations and Russian art.

Selected publications