Konstantin Gorbatov (1876–1945) was born on 17 May 1876 in Stavropol, a town on the Volga in Samara province (now Tolyatti). He first studied civil engineering in Riga, from 1896 to 1903, before turning fully to painting. In St Petersburg he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, first in the architecture department and then as a pupil of the landscape painter Nikolay Dubovskoy.
In 1912 an Academy scholarship took him to Rome, and an invitation from Maxim Gorky brought him to Capri. He left Russia for good in 1922, unwilling to live under the new regime, and settled in Italy. Later in the 1920s he moved to Berlin, where a large community of Russian émigré artists was at work.
His mature paintings are bright, colourful views of Capri, Amalfi, Venice and old Russian river towns, often grouped with Russian Post-Impressionism. Interest in his work faded in Nazi Germany, and he spent the war years in Berlin, where he died in May 1945. He bequeathed his works to the Academy of Arts.