Name: Leon Bakst (Russian: Лейб-Хаим Израилевич Розенберг)
Born: May 10, 1866, Grodno, Belarus
Died: December 28, 1924, Paris, France
Nationality: Russian, Jewish, Belarusian
Movement: Art Nouveau
Medium: Graphic Design, Illustration, Painting
Léon Bakst, born as Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich (later Samoylovich) Rosenberg, was a Russian painter and scene and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly colored sets and costumes.
Bakst was born in Grodno (now in Belarus), into a middle-class Jewish family. As his grandfather was an exceptional tailor, the Tsar gave him a very good position, and he had a huge and wonderful house in Saint Petersburg. Later, when Léon’s parents moved to the capital, the boy Léon would visit his grandfather's house every Saturday. He said that he had been very impressed as a youth by that house, always returning with pleasure. At the young age of twelve, Léon won a drawing contest and decided to become a painter, but his parents did not approve of this.
After graduating from gymnasium, he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as a noncredit student, because he had failed the entry. He also worked part-time as a book illustrator, gaining admission into the Imperial Academy in 1883. At the time of his first exhibition (1889) he took the surname of "Bakst," based on his mother's maiden name. The surname "Rosenberg" was thought to be "too Jewish" and not good for business. At the beginning of the 1890s, Bakst exhibited his works with the Society of Watercolorists. From 1893 to 1897 he lived in Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian. He still often visited Saint Petersburg. After the mid-1890s, Bakst became a member of the circle of writers and artists formed by Sergei Diaghilev and Alexandre Benois, who in 1899 founded the influential periodical Mir iskusstva, meaning "World of Art." His graphics for this publication brought him fame.
Bakst continued painting, producing portraits of Filipp Malyavin (1899), Vasily Rozanov (1901), Andrei Bely (1905), Zinaida Gippius (1906). He also worked as an art teacher for the children of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia. In 1902, he took a commission from Tsar Nicholas II to paint Admiral Avellan and Russian sailors meeting in Paris, a painting he started there, during the celebrations from the 17 to 25 October 1893. However, it took him 8 years to finish this work. In 1898, he showed his works in the Diaghilev-organized First Exhibition of Russian and Finnish Artists; in World of Art exhibitions, as well as the Munich Secession, exhibitions of the Union of Russian Artists, etc.
During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Bakst worked for the magazines Zhupel, Adskaja Pochta, and Satyricon, then for an art magazine called Apollon. Beginning in 1909, Bakst worked mostly as a stage-designer, designing sets for Greek tragedies. In 1908, he gained attention as a scene-painter for Diaghilev with the Ballets Russes. He produced scenery for Cleopatra (1909), Scheherazade (1910), Carnaval (1910), Narcisse (1911), Le Spectre de la Rose (1911), L'après-midi d'un faune (1912) and Daphnis et Chloé (1912)…
Source: Wikipedia
