Complex sentence: The first director of the new school was Alexander Lubimov, a student of Ilya Repin, while school teachers were alumni of Repin's workshop at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg.
Split into simpler sentences: The first director of the new school was Alexander Lubimov, a student of Ilya Repin. The teachers were also alumni of Repin's workshop at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg.