Leon Bakst — painter (ballet) with roots in the Russian Empire
Léon Bakst was born Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich Rosenberg, later recorded as Lev Samoylovich Rosenberg, in Grodno, in the Russian Empire, now Hrodna in Belarus, into a middle-class Jewish family. Wikipedia gives his birth date as 27 January (8 February, New Style) 1866; several other sources give 10 May 1866. He later took the surname Bakst from his mother's maiden name.
He attended a gymnasium in St Petersburg and, having first failed the entrance examination, studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts as a non-credit student from 1883, working part-time as a book illustrator. From 1893 to 1897 he lived largely in Paris, studying at the Académie Julian. Back in St Petersburg his portraits and book designs brought early success, and in 1898 he joined Sergei Diaghilev and Alexandre Benois in founding the World of Art group, whose journal Mir iskusstva made his graphic work known. He designed for the Hermitage and Alexandrinsky theatres in 1902-03 and for the Mariinsky in 1903-04, and from 1906 taught drawing at Yelizaveta Zvantseva's school, where his pupils included Marc Chagall.
From 1909 he worked with Diaghilev on the Ballets Russes in Paris and became its artistic director, designing Cléopâtre (1909), Schéhérazade and Carnaval (1910), costumes for The Firebird (1910), Narcisse and Le Spectre de la rose (1911), L'Après-midi d'un faune and Daphnis et Chloé (1912), and Jeux (1913). The colour and exoticism of these designs spread from the stage into fashion and interior decoration. As a Jew without a residence permit he was required to leave St Petersburg, and he settled in Paris; sources date this to 1910 or 1912. There he also worked for Ida Rubinstein's company.
He held a solo exhibition at the Pavillon de Marsan of the Louvre in 1911, toured the United States with exhibitions in 1914 and 1920, and in 1914 was elected a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts. After the Revolution his sister died of hunger in Russia. In 1922 he broke with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. He also wrote novels, criticism and essays in three languages.
He died of pulmonary oedema in a clinic at Rueil-Malmaison, near Paris, on 27 December 1924 (some sources say 28 December), aged fifty-eight.
Tracing the roots — Grodno, Grodno Governorate (now Hrodna, Belarus)
Born on 8 February 1866 (27 January Old Style) in Grodno, Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Belarus). He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg from 1883 and joined the circle around Diaghilev and Alexandre Benois, who founded the journal Mir Iskusstva in 1899.
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Grodno, Grodno Governorate (now Hrodna, Belarus). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"A costume is not fancy dress. It is a second skin."