Vera Kuznetzova was born in Harbin, China, to a family of Russian settlers. During her school years she studied dance and performed on stage. In 1921–1927, she turned to painting and drawing. She attended the Lotos (Lotus) art studio in Harbin, where one of her tutors was Mikhail Kichigin, later her husband. She started to exhibit her watercolour landscapes and portraits and to receive commissions for illustrations and designs.
In 1928, Vera Kuzntetzova and Mikhail Kichigin moved to Shanghai. Over the next ten years, the artistic duo maintained a studio there, while travelling extensively around China, Japan and Korea. During these voyages, they sketched and painted nature, people and architecture, and also met with local artists, observing their working techniques. The duo had exhibitions in Tsingtao (now Qingdao) (1929), Canton (now Guangzhou) (1932), Peking (now Beijing) (1932) and Korea (1932–1933), among other places.
By 1931, Kuznetzova was a member of the Shanghai Art Club, the city’s largest and most influential art society, where her colleague Victor Podgoursky was a resident critic and instructor. Almost all of the Art Club’s biannual exhibitions featured Kuznetzova’s recent work from her travels. At a joint exhibition of ten Russian artists in April 1933 she presented her watercolour landscapes of north and south China.
In contrast to her husband’s resentment toward exile, Kuznetzova found China endlessly inspiring, poetic and magnetic: “Its wonderful light transforms nature. Everything is soaked in sun; even the sky is warm.” She always sought to capture vivid colours and the intricacy of traditional décor. Among her recurring subjects were Chinese actors in traditional opera costume, theatre performances, bucolic scenes and dramatic historic events. Her ability to recreate Chinese ornamentation from memory was always in demand in her design work. She painted backdrops for Russian ballet and opera performances, such as Pavilion d’Arminde, Scheherazade, and many others.
In spite of charging high fees and selling many paintings, Kuznetzova and Kichigin spent everything they earned on art supplies and travel. The couple lived frugally, occasionally having to survive on two boiled eggs for dinner. Their studio at the Bearn Apartments, 10 Avenue Dubail, was virtually unfurnished, save for a canvas partition for the bedroom and several stools.
In December 1938, at a show at the French Club, Kichigin and Kuznetzova presented more than a hundred canvases; the critics remarked on Kuznetzova's pencil drawings of Chinese theatre sets and costumed actors. That exhibition was so popular that it was extended beyond its official closing date. The Diamond Jubilee of the International Settlement of Shanghai album (1940), compiled by Ivan Kounin and Alexander Yaron, with illustrations by 20 artists, included thirteen works by Kuznetzova, including the illustration on the title page.
In the 1940s, while the USSR was resisting the Nazi invasion, the Russian émigrés in Shanghai turned their thoughts and efforts to the cause. Kuznetzova contributed design and lettering work to the Soviet Consulate. After the end of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in August 1945, the Russian community began to disperse, and Kichigin and Kuznetzova sailed to the USSR.
In 1950, Vera was arrested on trumped-up charges of counterrevolutionary activity – like many returnees – and sentenced to 25 years of forced labour. Chronically malnourished and forced to dig irrigation ditches in Kazakhstan, she was hospitalised twice. Eventually, she was assigned the duties of decorator, which included painting propaganda posters and murals for the prisoners’ barracks. Upon her release in 1955, Vera Kuznetzova settled in Yaroslavl with Kichigin, became a member of the Soviet Artists’ Union and started to exhibit her work again. The creative duo energised the arts scene in the provincial city. The Yaroslavl Art Museum, which holds a large collection of Vera Kuznetzova’s and Mikhail Kichigin’s works, has organised multiple exhibitions and conducted academic studies of their art.