Vera Ignatyevna Mukhina (Russian: Вера Игнатьевна Мухина; Latvian: Vera Muhina; born 1 July [O.S. 19 June] 1889 in Riga; died 6 October 1953 in Moscow) was a prominent Soviet sculptor.

Mukhina was born in Riga into a wealthy merchant family, and lived at Turgeneva st. 23/25, where a memorial plaque has now been placed. She later moved to Moscow, where she studied at several private art schools, including those of Konstantin Yuon and Ilya Mashkov. In 1912 she traveled to Paris, where she attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and took lessons from Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, then continued on to Italy to explore the art and sculptures of the Renaissance period.

In 1915 and 1916, she served as assistant to Aleksandra Ekster at Alexander Tairov's Chamber Theater in Moscow. In 1918 she married Alexei Zamkov, a military surgeon.

In the 1920s Mukhina rose to become one of the Soviet Union's most prominent sculptors, and although she continued to produce cubist sculpture as late as 1922, she became a leading figure of Socialist realism, both in style and ideology. She taught at the state school, Vkhutemas, in 1926-1927, and came to international attention with the 1937 Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. Her studio's work on official monuments and architectural sculpture on state commissions continued through her death. She also experimented with glass, producing glass figural busts. According to legend, the classic Soviet faceted table-glass was designed by Mukhina.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov (Russian: Михаи́л Васи́льевич Не́стеров; May 31 [O.S. May 19] 1862, Ufa – 18 October 1942, Moscow) was a major representative of religious Symbolism in Russian art. He was a pupil of Pavel Tchistyakov at the Imperial Academy of Arts, but later allied himself with the group of artists known as the Peredvizhniki. His canvas The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew (1890–91), depicting the conversion of medieval Russian saint Sergii Radonezhsky, is often considered to be the earliest example of the Russian Symbolist style.

From 1890 to 1910, Nesterov lived in Kiev and St Petersburg, working on frescoes in St. Vladimir's Cathedral and the Church on Spilt Blood, respectively. After 1910, he spent the remainder of his life in Moscow, working in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. As a devout Orthodox Christian, he did not accept the Bolshevik Revolution but remained in Russia until his death, painting the portraits of Ivan Ilyin, Ivan Pavlov, Ksenia Derzhinskaia, Otto Schmidt, and Vera Mukhina, among others.