Painter, graphic artist. Genre painter and portraitist. He was born into a family of an impoverished official. From 1826-1833 he studied at the First Moscow Cadet Corps. On completion of his studies, he was selected as the most promising student and sent to the Finnish Life Guard Regiment in St. Petersburg. In the regiment P.A.Fedotov takes up amateur art, writes poetry, songs and paints. During his service period (1834-1844) he attended classes at the Academy of Arts as a voluntary student. During this time he created a lot of drawings and water colours, depicting scenes from regimental life. He also made a series of watercolour portraits and genre scenes. In 1844 P.A.Fedotov resigned from the army and decided to devote himself to painting. He listened to the advice of K.P.Bryullov. At the academic exhibition in 1849, three of his first paintings were exhibited - «"The New Chevalier". An Official on the Morning after Receiving an Award» (1846), "Fastidious Bride" (1847), "The Major Goes a Courting" (1848), which won the artist great, but passing fame and the Academician title for painting domestic scenes. The artist produced work in the portrait genre, as well as drawings and sepias. For the short period (1840s - 1852) the development in P.A.Fedotov’s art underwent a significant evolution. The early work by the master is marked by humour in everyday situations, which are didactic and combined with good-natured mockery and admiration for the beauty in the subject world. Fedotov introduced to genre painting not only the plot, but also the subsequent developing action resembling a theatrical mise-en-scene with a dramatical fascination with the subject. His contemporaries commented that the power in his work was in "teaching morals by means of the beautiful spectacle". In Fedotov’s later work, the narrative principles begin to fade and the artistic language becomes figurative and his paintings overwhelmed by tragic solitude and gloom.