Vladimir Borovikovskiy was born Vladimir Borovik in Mirgorod (now Ukraine) on July 24 O.S. 1757. His father, Luka Borovik was a Ukrainian Cossack and an amateur icon painter. According to the family tradition, all four of Borovik's sons served in Mirgorod regiment, but Vladimir retired early at the rank of lieutenant ('poruchik') and devoted his life to art - mostly icon painting for local churches.

Borovikovskiy may have lived the remainder his life as an amateur painter in a provincial town if not for an unexpected event. His friend Vasiliy Kapnist was preparing an accommodation for Empress Catherine II in Kremenchug during her travel to newly conquered Crimea. Kapnist asked Borovikovskiy to paint two allegoric paintings (Peter I of Russia and Catherine II as peasants sowing seeds and Catherine II as a Minerva) for her rooms. The paintings so pleased the Empress that she requested that the painter move to Saint Petersburg.

After September 1788 Borovikovskiy lived in Saint Petersburg where he changed his surname from the Cossack "Borovik" to the more aristocratic-sounding "Borovikovskiy". For his first ten years in Saint Petersbug, he lived in the house of the poet, architect, musician and art theorist, Prince Nikolay Lvov, whose ideas strongly influenced Borovikovskiy's art. At 30-years-old, he was too old to attend Imperial Academy of Arts, so he took private lessons from Dmitriy Levitzkiy and later from Austrian painter Johann Baptist Lampi.

In 1795 he was appointed an academician. He became a popular portrait painter and created about 500 portraits during his lifetime, 400 of which survived to the 21st century. He had his own studio, and often relied on assistants to paint the less important parts of a portrait. His sitters included members of the imperial family, courtiers, generals, many aristocrats, and figures from the Russian artistic and literary worlds. Most of his portraits are intimate in style.

The most notable are:

"Portrait of Catherine II, Empress of Russia," (1794);
"Portrait of E.N.Arsenyeva," (1796);
"Portrait of M.I.Lopukhina," (1797);
"Portrait of F.A.Borovskiy," (1799);
"Portrait of Paul I, Emperor of Russia," (1800);
"Portrait of Prince A.B.Kurakin," (1801-1802);
"Portrait of Princess A.G.Gagarina and Princess V.G.Gagarina," (1802).

Borovikovskiy never taught in the Imperial Academy of Art but pupils lived in his home. Among them were Alexey Venetsianov and Bugaevskiy-Blagodarny (who painted the only survived portrait of Vladimir Borovikovskiy).

After 1819 Borovikovskiy became a Freemason, member of a lodge Dying Sphinx. At that time he mostly painted icons, including Iconostasis of the Smolenskiy Cemetery church and some icons for Kazan Cathedral in Saint-Petersburg.

On April 6, 1825 he died suddenly of a heart attack and was interned in Smolenskiy cemetery in Saint Petersburg.

	'Portrait of the Great Princess Mariya Pavlovna'
	'Portrait of the Empress Mariya Fedorovna'
	'Portrait of Princess Margarita Ivanovna Dolgorukaya' (1810)
	'Portrait of Princess Anna Gavriilovna Gagarina and Princess Varvara Gavriilovna Gagarina' (1802)
	'Portrait of Pavel I in Costume of Grand Master of the Maltese Order' (1800)
	'Portrait of Mariya Ivanovna Lopuhina' (1797)
	'Portrait of Major-General Fedor Artemyevich Borovskoy' (1799)
	'Portrait of Elena Alexandrovna Naryshkina' (1799)
	'Portrait of E.V.Rodzyanko' (1821)
	'Portrait of Darya Alexeevna Derzhavina' (1813)
	'Portrait of Countess Anna Ivanovna Bezborodko with Daughters Lyubov and Cleopatra' (1803)
	'Portrait of Count Gregory Gregoryevich Kushelev with Children' (1801)
	'Portrait of Alexander I'
	'Catherine II During the Walk in the Tsarskoselskiy Park' (1794)

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