by Leek, Peter.
LEON BAKST
Leon Bakst (Lev Samoilovich Rosenberg) was born on 27 April (9 May N.S.) 1866, in Grodno. His family soon moved to Saint Petersburg. From 1883 to 1887 he was an unregistered student of the Academy of Arts under Pavel Chistiakov and Karl Wenig. In 1891 he traveled to Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, and Italy. In 1893, having been commissioned to paint Paris Welcoming Admiral Avelan (completed in 1900), he left for the French capital, where he stayed for six years. In Paris he visited the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme and the Académie Julian, and studied under the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt. He traveled to Spain and North Africa. In 1907, he made a journey around Greece together with Valentin Serov. In 1890 he joined the circle of Alexander Benois and his friends Konstantin Somov, Dmitry Filosofov, Walter Nuvel, and Sergeï Diaghilev. In 1898, he played an active part in the organization of the World of Art association. He participated in exhibitions as from 1890. From 1906 to 1909 he taught at Yelizaveta Zvantseva’s art school. As from 1909, he mainly lived in Paris. His early ventures in the field of literary and newspress graphic art date from 1888 to 1893: they were the designs of books for children and teenagers, journalistic drawings in the journals Khudozhnik (The Artist) and Peterburgskaya zhizn (Saint Petersburg Life). Later, the style of his graphic works changed markedly. Between 1899 and 1909 he contributed to the journals WorId of Art, The Art Treasures of Russia, Vesy (The Balance), The Golden Fleece, Satiricon, Apollon, and Yezhegodnik Imperatoskikh teatrov (The Annual of the Imperial Theatres), The almanachs of Northern Flowers, The Dogrose, as well as the books: V. Vereshchagin’s Russian Book Sign, A. Benois’ Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III, A. Bloke’s collection of poems The Snow Mask, etc. He produced drawings for theatrical programs and postcards issued by the Publishing House of the Red Cross Society of St. Eugenia, sketches for posters, and bookplates. In 1899 and the 1900s he worked in the medium of lithography. He created many graphic portraits including those of Isaac Levitan, Philip Maliavin, Maria Savina (all 1899), Andreï Bely, Konstantin Somov, Zinaida Gippius, Alexander Golovin and Isadora Duncan (all 1905 to 1908). His paintings belong to different genres and include many studies and portraits: A Spaniard (1901), Self-Portrait (1893), A Young Dagomean (1895), portraits of Walter Nuvel (1895), Alexander Benois (1898), Vassily Rozanov (1901), Liubov Gritsenko (1903), Sergeï Diaghilev and his nun (1906); landscapes: The Courtyard at the Musée Cluny in Paris (1891), In the Environs of Nice (1899), Olive Grove, A Rainy Day in the Alps, A Village Church, Autumn in Versailles (all 1903-04); narrative pictures: Siamese Ritual Dance (1901), Supper (1902), Vase: Self-Portrait (1906), Downpour (1906); decorative panels: Elysium (1906), repeating the curtain for the Vera Komissarzhevskaya Theatre), Terror Antiquus (1908). In 1902, he produced boudoir decor designs for the Contemporary Art Store and Exhibition. Bakst turned to theatrical painting, to which he largely owes his fame, in 1902. He designed the following productions: The Marquise’s Heart, a pantomime show (1902, the Hermitage Theatre), J. Bayer’s ballet Die Puppenfee (The Fairy Doll) (1903, the Hermitage Theatre and later the Mariinsky Theatre), Euripides’ Tragedy Hippolytus and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (1902 and 1904, the Alexandrine Theatre). From 1909 to 1921 he worked for Diaghilev’s Company, becoming its artistic head in 1911. He designed a number of ballet productions: Cléopâtre to the music of A. Arensky, S. Taneyev, M. Glinka, and others (1909), Stravinsky’s Firebird (1910, costumes for two characters), Rimsky-Korsakov’s Schéhérazade and Schumann’s Le Carnaval (1910), Weber’s Le Spectre de la Rose and Nikolaï Tcherepnin’s Narcisse (1911), Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé, Reynaldo Hahn’s Le Dieu Bleu, Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un Faun (1912), Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty (1921), etc. He also worked for lda Rubinstein’s company (d’Annunzios Le Martyre de St. Sébastiene, 1911; and La Pisanella, 1912), and Anna Pavlova’s company (Oriental Fantasy with music by Ippolitov-lvanov and Mussorgsky, 1913). During the last years of his life he designed productions in the Grande Opéra, Théâtre du Gymnase, Femina, and Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris; continued to draw portraits: Léonide Massine (1914), Virginia Zucchi (1917), Vaslav Nijinsky (1910s), Anna Pavlova (1920) etc. and designed dresses. He lectured on contemporary art and costume in many cities of Europe and the USA. He created decorative panels for mansions in London, Rome and elsewhere. He is the author of the articles The Ways of Classicism in Art (1909), On Contemporary Art (1914), and of memoirs Serov and I in Greece (1923). He died on 27 December 1924 in Paris.
KONSTANTIN ANDREYEVICH SOMOV
Konstantin Andreyevich Somov was born on 18 November 1869, in Saint Petersburg. He was the son of Andreï Somov, the senior curator of the Hermitage and art collector. He studied at K. May’s private school, where he met Alexander Benois, Walter Nuvel and Dmitry Filosofov. During his school years, he took private drawing lessons and attended the evening drawing classes of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. In 1888 he entered the Academy of Arts and from 1894 studied in Repin’s studio there. In 1897, under the influence of Benois’ circle, he left the Academy and in the autumn of that year went to Paris. He attended the Académie Colarossi and studied the collections of the Louvre, Carnavalet, and the Luxembourg Museum; in the autumn of 1898 he again spent several months in Paris. He took part in exhibitions from 1895 on. He was one of organizers and active members of the World of Art association. He painted small-scale pictures and studies in watercolour and gouache, as well as compositions and portraits in oils. The best examples of his work are distinctive narrative scenes, “retrospective visions” depicting ladies and cavaliers in eighteenth-century costumes, love scenes, scènes galantes, and promenades: A Letter, A Lady by a Pond, A Promenade after Rain (all 1896), Rainbow, A Promenade in Winter (all 1897), In the Bosquet (1898-99), An Island of Love (1900), Evening (1902), The Echo of Times Past (1903), Summer (1904), Winter (1905), The Ridiculed Kiss (1909), Winter, The Skating Rink (1915), etc. In the early 1910s he created the series Harlequinade (Fireworks) which included the paintings Pierrot and Lady, Harlequin and Lady, Italian Comedy, and Columbine Poking Out Her Tongue. In 1913 he designed a curtain for the Free Theatre in Moscow. Between the late 1890s and the 1910s, he painted many landscapes from life: Road at the Dacha, In Spring: Martyshkino (1896), White Night: Sergiyevo, Moonrise (1897), Autumn in the Versailles Park (1898), Grove on the Seashore, Ploughland (both 1900), Rainbow (1908), Spring Landscape (1910), etc. He also produced several retrospective landscape compositions with figures: In Confidence (1897), Bathers (1899). In the late 1910s — early 1920s such compositions took on a different character: Landscape with a Rainbow, Summer, Summer Morning, Landscape with a Rainbow and Bathers. Throughout his artistic career, he painted portraits, notably of Natalia Ober (1896), his father (1897), himself (1898), Yelizaveta Martynova (Lady in Blue, 1897-1900), Anna Ostroumova (1901-1904), Henrietta Hirschmann (1911), Yelena Oliv (1914), Nadezhda Vysotskaya (1917), and Mefody Lukyanov (1918). From 1906 to 1910 he produced, for the journals The Golden Fleece and Apollon, graphic portraits of Viacheslav Ivanov, Alexander Blok, Yevgeny Lanceray, Mikhaïl Kuzmin, Fiodor Sologub, and Mikhaïl Dobuzhinsky. Closely related to them are his self-portraits (1902, 1903, 1904. 1909) and a portrait of Walter Nuvel (1914). An important place in his work is taken by literary and newspress graphic art. He designed the WorId of Art journal, contributed to the journals The Art Treasures of Russia and the Golden Fleece, produced the cover of The Northern Flowers Almanach for 1901. He designed covers, title pages and frontispieces for A. Benois’ book Tsarskoye Selo during the Reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1902), K. Balmont’s Firebird, The Slav’s Pipe, V. Ivanov’s Cor Ardens and The Theatre (all 1907). He produced relatively few illustrations as such: drawings for Pushkin’s Count Nulin (1899), Gogol’s Portrait and Nevsky Prospekt (1901). He completely designed an edition of Franz Blei’s Lesebuch der Marquise (1907), including the title page and half-title, a large number of illustrations, numerous vignettes, head- and tailpieces, frames, ornamental patterns, and initials: some elements of the ornament
ation were, like the headpieces for The Golden Fleece, executed in a silhouette technique. He worked extensively in the field of applied graphic and decorative art: he designed many posters, theatrical programs, postcards for the Publishing House of the Red Cross Society of St. Eugenia (the Days of the Week series, 1904), tobacco-boxes, items of jewelry, fans, and embroidered articles. In 1905 he created models which were used at the Imperial Porcelain Factory to cast the statuettes The Lovers, Lover, and Lady Removing Her Mask. Late in 1923 he went to New York with a group of artists accompanying an exhibition of Russian art and remained in America; in 1925 he moved to France. During his years abroad he painted retrospective scenes to commission, produced a number of watercolours devoted to the Russian ballet in Paris, and portraits (including Sergeï Rakhmaninov, 1925, and Self-Portrait before a Mirror, 1934). He died on 6 May 1939 in Paris.
VALENTIN ALEXANDROVICH SEROV
Valentin Alexandrovich Serov was born on 7 January (19 N.S.) 1865, in Saint Petersburg, the son of the composer and music critic Alexander Serov. From 1872 to 1874 he lived with his mother in Munich and took lessons from the artist Karl Köpping. Between October 1874 and the summer of 1875, while in Paris, he regularly attended Ilya Repin’s studio. In 1877 he studied at Nikolaï Murashko’s private drawing school in Kiev. From 1878 to 1880 he studied under the guidance of Repin and lived in the artist’s flat in Moscow; in 1880 he accompanied him on his travels to the Crimea, Odessa, Chernigov, and the Zaporozhye area. From 1880 to 1885 he studied at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts and in Pavel Chistiakov’s private workshop. In 1886 he attended classes at the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He frequently traveled to different parts of Europe: Germany (1885, 1889, 1897, 1899, 1902), Belgium and Holland (1885), Italy (1887, 1904, 1911), France (1889, 1900, 1909, 1910), Denmark (1899), Greece (1907) and England (1911). He visited the Caucasus (1883) and the Crimea (1883, 1887, 1893). In the late 1870s and 1880s, he often lived and worked on Savva Mamontov’s Abramtsevo estate near Moscow; between 1886 and 1911 he spent some time almost every year at Domotkanovo, Vladimir Derviz’s estate in Tver Province and from 1901 at his own dacha at Ino in Finland. From 1897 to January 1909, he taught at the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. From 1886 to the end of his life he was a member of the Board of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. He took part in exhibitions from 1886 on and those of the World of Art starting in 1899. As from 1894 he was a member of the Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions and from 1910 of the reorganized World of Art. He mainly worked in portraiture. He painted portraits of relatives, friends, and children: Olga Trubnikova, his wife (1885, 1886, 1895), Vera Mamontova (Girl with Peaches, 1887), Maria Simonovich (Girl in the Sunlight, 1888), Sasha and Yury Serov (Children, 1889), Alexander Serov, the artist’s father (1889), and Mika Morozov (1901). He created a large gallery of creative people: Angelo Masini (1890), Francesco Tamagno, Konstantin Korovin (both 1891), Isaac Levitan (1893), Nikolaï Leskov (1894), Nikolaï Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergeï Diaghilev (both 1904), Maria Yermolova, Glikeria Fedotova, Maxim Gorky (all 1905), Ida Rubinstein (1910). He painted commissioned portraits of members of the imperial family, high society and the bourgeoisie: Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich (1897), Mikhaïl Morozov (1902), Zinaida Yusupova (1900-02), Felix Yusupov, Felix Sumarokov-Elstone (both 1903), Henrietta Hirschmann (1907), lvan Morozov (1910), Vladimir Hirschmann, Olga Orlova (both 1911). In 1910 he was commissioned by the Italian Ministry of Public Education to produce a self-portrait for the Uffizi Gallery, but no evidence has been found of its completion. His painted landscapes and landscapes combined with elements of everyday life which reflect his interest in rural motifs: Overgrown Pond: Domotkanovo (1888), Landscape with Horses (Village Landscape), 1890; October: Domotkanovo (1895), In a Village: Woman with a Horse (1898), Rinsing Linen, A Hay Stack (both 1905). During his journey to the Russian North in 1894 he produced a series of sketches (The White Night, The Sea Dwellers, The Northern Dvina, At Murman, etc.) From 1900 to 1911 he created many historical works: Emperor Peter II and Tsesarevna Elizabeth Petrovna Riding to Hounds (1900), Catherine II Setting Out to Hunt with Falcons, and Peter the Great Riding to Hounds (both 1902), all illustrations for N. Kutepov’s book The Royal and Imperial Hunt in Russia: Late 17th and 18th Centuries; Peter the Great (1907) for Iosif Knoebel’s publication Russian History in Pictures; as well as Oprichnik (1909); The Grand Eagle Cup, Peter the Great at Monplaisir (both 1910), and Peter the Great at Work (1910-11). He often turned to ancient themes. After his visit to the Crimea in 1893 he painted Iphigenia at Tauris, while his visit to Greece in 1907 inspired Odysseus and Nausicaa and The Rape of Europe (both 1910). In 1894 he produced sketches for the panel After the Battle of Kulikovo Field (for the Historical Museum in Moscow, not completed). In 1887 he created the ceiling painting Phoebus Effulgent for Selezniov’s estate in Tula Province. He created theatrical decor for Alexander Serov’s opera Judith (1907, the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg), various curtain designs, and the curtain itself for Rimsky-Korsakov’s ballet Schéhérazade (1911, the Russian Seasons and Le Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris). Serov was an outstanding master of drawing. He produced many drawings as works in their own right, as well as sketches and studies. Most are portraits of prominent cultural figures: Fiodor Chaliapin, Konstantin Balmont (both 1905), Mikhaïl Vrubel, Wanda Landowska (1907), Eugene Isaye (1903), Ivan Moskvin, Vassily Kachalov, Konstantin Stanislavsky (all 1908), Tamara Karsavina, Michel Fokine, Anna Pavlova (two portraits) (all 1909), and Vaslav Nijinsky (1910). He also created lithographic portraits: Alfred Nurok, Alexander Glazunov, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva (all 1899), Ilya Repin (1901), and Leonid Andreyev (1907). From 1896 to 1899 he produced a number of etchings: A Lion Recumbent, October, Self-portrait, Portrait of Vassily Mathé and Peasant Woman with Horse. Between 1895 and 1911 he produced a large series of illustrations for lvan Krylov’s fables. During the revolution of 1905 he was involved in organizing the satirical political journal The Bugaboo and produced a number of scathing satirical drawings: “Soldiers, heroes everyone...”, The Year 1905: Alter the Pacification, Prospects for the Harvest of 1906, as well as some sketches of real events: Baumann’s Funeral, The Dispersal of Demonstrators by Cossacks, The Sumy Regiment. He died on 22 November (4 December N.S.) 1911 in Moscow.
ALEXNDER YAKOVLEVICH GOLOVIN
Alexander Yakovlevich Golovin was born on 17 February (1 March N.S.) 1863, in Moscow. From 1891 to 1889 he studied at the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (first in the architectural department, transferring two years later to the painting department) under Illarion Prianishnikov and Vladimir Makovsky. In 1889 he took a number of lessons at the Académie Colarossi and in 1897 studied at Witti’s private school under Raphael Colin and Luc Olivier Merson.
From 1895 to 1898 he traveled to Italy, Spain, and France. Almost every year before World War I he toured around Europe. He participated in exhibitions as from 1893 and was a member of the World of Art beginning in 1902.
In the late in the 1890s he worked at the ceramic workshop at Abramtsevo together with Mikhaïl Vrubel and produced majolica works — tiles, utensils, and decorative panels. At Vrubel’s suggestion, he took part in the decoration of the façade of the Hotel Metropole (designs for the majolica panels Cleopatra, Orpheus, Swans, etc.). He produced sketches for the decor of the “Russian dining room” at Yakunchikov’s home (together with Yelena Polenova) and a Russian-style room for the art enterprise Contemporary Art. In 1900 he designed, together with Konstantin Korovin, the handicrafts section of the Russian Pavilion at the Paris World Fair.
He began to work for the theatre in 1900, designing opera productions for the Bolshoi Theatre: A. Koreshchenko’s House of Ice (1900), Rimsky-Korsakov’s Maid of Pskov (1901), etc.
In 1902 he was appointed chief decorator of the Imperial Theatres and moved to Saint Petersburg. From 1902 to 1908 he designed opera productions in the Mariinsky Theatre: Rubinstein’s Demon, Glinka’s Ruslan and Liudmila (together with Konstantin Korov
in), Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tale of Tsar Saltan, Bizet’s Carmen, etc. and in 1905, 1906 and 1907, drama productions in the Alexandrine Theatre: Ibsen’s Lady from the Sea and Phantoms, Sophocles’ Antigone, and others. For Diaghilev he designed the main scenes for Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (1908), and sets and costumes for Stravinsky’s ballet Firebird (1910).
From 1908 to 1917 he collaborated closely with Meyerhold: at the Alexandrine Theatre he designed productions of Hamsun’s At the Gates of the Kingdom (1908), Molière’s Don Juan (1910), Ostrovsky’s Thunder (1916), Lermontov’s Masquerade (1917) and other works; at the Mariinsky Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Eurydice (1911), Dargomyzhsky’s opera The Stone Guest (1917), a ballet to Glinka’s Jota Aragonesa (1916), and more.
In subsequent years he continued to work in the theatres of Petrograd/Leningrad and Moscow. The most significant venture of this period was a production of Beaumarchais’ Le Mariage de Figaro in the Moscow Arts Theatre (1927).
He designed a curtain for the Mariinsky Theatre (1917) and two curtains for the Odessa Theatre (1925). He devoted much time to easel painting, creating portraits of major cultural figures: Nicholas Roerich (1906), Mikhaïl Kuzmin (1910), Konstantin Varlamov (1914), Vsevolod Meyerhold (1917), and others; performers in roles: Chaliapin as Mephistopheles (1905 and 1909), the Demon (1906), Farlaf (1907), Holofernes (1908), and Boris Godunov (1912), Maria Kuznetsova-Benois as Carmen (1908), Dmitry Smirnov as de Grieux (1909), etc., the Spanish Women series (1902-11); formal portraits: Marina Makovskaya, Natalia Vysotskaya, Yevfimia Nosova (all 1910s) etc., as well as landscapes: Pond in a Grove, Landscape: Pavlovsk, Autumn Landscape, etc.), still lifes: (Phloxes, Porcelain and Flowers, Golden Tansies, etc.).