Ivan I. Bilibin (1876–1942)

Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (Russian: Ива́н Я́ковлевич Били́бин) was a 20th-century Russian illustrator and stage designer who took part in the Mir iskusstva movement and contributed to the Ballets Russes. He co-founded the Union of Russian Painters, and from 1937 was a member of the Artists' Union of the USSR.

Born in 1876 in St. Petersburg, in 1898 Bilibin studied at the Anton Ažbe Art School in Munich, where he was heavily influenced by Art Nouveau and the German satirical journal Simplicissimus, and then under Ilya Repin in St. Petersburg. After graduating in May 1901 he went to Munich, where he completed his training with the painter Anton Ažbe. In 1902-1904 Bilibin travelled in the Russian North, where he became fascinated with old wooden architecture and Russian folklore. He published his findings in the monograph Folk Arts of the Russian North in 1904.

Bilibin gained renown in 1899, when he released his illustrations of Russian fairy tales. His satirical cartoon work, during the Russian Revolution of 1905, was controversial, due to his depiction of the Tsar as a donkey. After the October Revolution in 1917, Bilibin left Russia for a number of years, settling and working in Egypt. He returned to Soviet Russia in 1936, and died of starvation during the Siege of Leningrad in 1942.

(source: Wikipedia)