L. Kostenko graduated from the Secondary Fine Arts School in 1965. In the same year she successfully passed the entrance exams to the renown Academy of Fine Arts State Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin.
The Academy opened new horizons to the artist: “On one hand the rigid requirements of an academic school gave the impression that everyone was working in the same manner. On the other, students came from all over the USSR, bringing diverse cultures and different values into their work. As the youngest student and the only girl I felt privileged and very excited. I was absorbed by painting, hungry for success but unaware of what it was, full of energy and triumph. In reality I was still a child, very naïve and innocent…” says L. Kostenko.
In her own words, Kostenko was greatly influenced by Professors Evsei E. Moiseenko (1916–1988) and A.A. Mylnikov. Their students were different, very productive and full of energy. Prof. Moiseenko’s students were also very diverse, although it was difficult not to be affected by his style. His work was different to that of his contemporaries; he was a “non-Academic” Academician. These non-Academic Academicians are now recognised as the great masters of the 20th century Russian art and include the renown landscape painter Viacheslav F. Zagonek (1919–1994), talented theatre artist Sofia M. Yunovich (1910-1996), painter Gleb A. Savinov (1915-2000), Olga B. Bogaievskaia (1915-2000), and Solomon B. Epstein. She also visited the studio of the former court artist Alfred Eberling (1872-1950) and spoke to his widow. This atmosphere played a big part in Kostenko’s development as an artist: stepping into the studio of one of the greatest artists, learning about its past, seeing and touching history. Alfred Eberling’s unique fate was that he was equally popular with the Tsar and the communist leaders of post-revolutionary Russia. He was known both as a great portrait painter and as a photographer, whose models included the famous St. Petersburg actresses and ballerinas Mathilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, and Tamara Karsavina.
In 1905 Eberling replaced Valentin Serov as the court painter to the Tsar Nicholas II. After the October revolution he switched to painting Stalin Stalin and Koganovich. His most famous work is the portrait of Lenin, which won him the first prize in the 1924 competition. It was later printed on the Russian banknotes.In her final year at the Academy and for many years after graduating Kostenko concentrated on developing her own style, especially the colour, to overcome the many strong influences of the Academic training: “I wanted to free myself from the framework; the methods, which, once mastered, make you a “master painter”, but more often than not, lead to vulgar formalism.”
Leningrad had always had a fascinating artistic life. It was semi-secret, semi-closed. Kostenko recalls: “… as students we would often go to the cinema club in the Kirov’s Maison de Culture where I watched all Fellini, Visconti and Pasolini films. There were many clubs like these: in the Artists’ Union, the theatre. However, they existed for questionable and unapproved works of art which would eventually be criticised by the authorities. This was the irony of the Soviet time: everything was apparently under tight control but in reality everyone had the possibility to develop themselves and learn first hand by reading radical and even officially forbidden publications.”
Luba Kostenko graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1971.