Constantin Somoff

Son of an art historian and curator at the Hermitage Museum, Constantin Somov took an early interest in 18th century art and music. Between 1888 and 1897, he studied painting at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and for three years attended the studio of Ilia Repin with Igor Grabar, Philippe Maliavine, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva. He is particularly fond of Rococo art, like Fragonard and Watteau, and favors gouache painting. He became friends during his studies with Alexandre Benois, Serge Diaghilev and Léon Bakst and went with them to Paris in 1897. Somov then attended the workshops of Whistler and the Académie Colarossi. When they returned to Russia, Somov contributed his illustrations to the magazine Mir Iskousstva that his three companions founded in 1899.

During the 1910s, Somov illustrated the works of Alexandre Blok and notably produced a series of characters from the commedia dell'arte. His paintings were exhibited in France, at the Salon d'Automne in 1906, and in Germany, where a first monograph was devoted to him in 1907. He became a member of the Imperial Academy in 1913 and was appointed professor at the École des beaux -arts of Pétrograd (Saint-Petersburg) in 1918. It remains at 97 Ekaterinhofski prospect (now Rimsky-Korsakov prospect) from 1887 to 1923.

In 1923, he emigrated to the United States, but stayed only a year in this country, which he declared incompatible with his artistic temperament. He then moved to Paris, where he illustrated among others Manon Lescaut, Daphnis and Chloé and the poems of Pouchkine. Towards the end of his life, he painted mostly portraits.

The paintings of Constantin Somov experienced a resurgence in popularity at the beginning of the 21st century and their value on the art market increased significantly as a result. On June 14, 2007, his landscape entitled L'Arc-en-ciel (1927) was sold for $ 7.33 million at Christie's