Mikhail Markianovich Germasev was born in on 13 August 1867 in Volchansk, in the Kharkov province of Ukraine and studied at the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In 1897 he was awarded the prize from the Moscow Society of Art for his painting Snow, later acquired by Pavel M. Tretyakov. Germasev lived in Moscow. He painted mainly landscapes, still lifes and genre subjects and continued the traditions of the Peredvizhniki or “The Wanderers”, a group of Russian painters who rebelled against the restrictive and classicism of the Russian Academy. Believing that art should be useful and express social and humanitarian ideals they focused on realistic depictions of subjects from Russian middle-class and peasant life. From 1870 onwards they formed a Society of Wandering Exhibitors and organised mobile exhibitions of their works in an effort to bring serious art to the people. By the 1880’s landscape painting flourished and Germasev’s work became highly sought after. Among Germasev’s favourite subjects was the winter landscape of Middle Russia, capturing the setting sun spreading its warm glow across the trees and snow, and it is these vibrant and serene landscapes which he is renowned for. Germasev exhibited widely, including the Spring exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and with the Society of Wandering Exhibitors between 1901 and 1914, and he was a member of Moscow Association of Artists. After the October Revolution in 1917, Germasev took part in the exhibition of painting, sculpture and industrial art in Ryazan in 1918, and the in State Exhibition in Moscow in 1919. Having visited France and Belgium in 1911 and 1915, Germasev decided to immigrate to Paris in 1920 where he lived until his death in 1930. Germasev became an active member of the artistic circles in Paris and he exhibited at Sociéte des Artistes Français in 1927. Works by Mikhail Germashev can be found in notable private and public collections, including the State Tretyakov Gallery, Irkutsk Regional Art Museum.