In the end of 1894, he enrolled in Ilya Repin's class at the Imperial Academy of Arts that has just been radically reformed. His classmates, the first "spendid" post-reform group, included Alexej von Jawlensky and Marianne von Werefkin who introduced him to French Impressionism, Konstantin Bogaevsky, Oleksandr Murashko, Nicholas Roerich and Arkady Rylov. Filipp Malyavin, Konstantin Somov, Dmitry Kardovsky also studied alongside Grabar but were admitted earlier. Grabar remained "a fervent admirer" of Repin for life but became quickly dissatisfied with academic studies and in July 1895 left for a brief study tour of Western Europe financed by "Niva" magazine.