The Russian painter famous for the 1885 work Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan was Ilya Repin.
Repin created the painting between 1883 and 1885, depicting Tsar Ivan the Terrible cradling his mortally wounded son, Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich. The scene focuses not on the instant of the blow but on the aftermath: the father’s horror and remorse contrast with the son’s fading life. The work is also known by its longer title, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581.
Repin drew inspiration from themes of violence and political terror surrounding the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, as well as from music and his experience of bullfights in Europe. He used acquaintances, including painter Grigoriy Myasoyedov and writer Vsevolod Garshin, as models.
The painting was briefly censored in 1885 after objections from officials close to Alexander III. It later entered Pavel Tretyakov’s collection and remains one of the Tretyakov Gallery’s best-known works. The historical event itself is disputed by some historians, but Repin’s authorship is not.