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 painting and sculpture of the Renaissance period. Mukhina returned to Moscow in summer 1914 two weeks before World War I began. Having taken nursing courses, she began working in a military hospital. Here, also in 1914, she met the young military doctor Alexey Zamkov, whom she married in 1918.