One of the paintings from Golovin s famous Spanish Women cycle, created over the course of two decades. Trips to Spain, which the artist loved, served as the impetus. The artist incarnated his ideas of beauty in these romantic images of Spanish women. The models, however, were generally choristers, ballerinas and seamstresses of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, who posed for him in specially designed costumes.

Golovin Alexander

Golovin, Alexander Yakovlevich
1863, Moscow - 1930, Detskoe Selo (Leningrad Region)
Theatrical designer, painter, graphic artist. Studied under Illarion Pryanishnikov and Vasily Polcnov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1881-89) and at the Academic de Filippo Colarossi (1889) and Academie Witti (1897) in Paris. Academician (1912). Member of the World of Art (1902) and the Union of Russian Artists (1903). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1893, 1895), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1894, 1901-02), World of Art (1899-1903, 1906, 1911-12, 1924), Union of Russian Artists (1903-09, 1916), New Society of Artists (1907, 1908), Expositions Universelles in Paris (1900; gold and silver medals) and Brussels (1910), Esposizione Internazionale in Venice (1907) and Rome (1911) and the Exhibitions of Russian Art in Paris (1906) and Berlin (1906). Designed for the Bolshoi Theatre and Moscow Arts Theatre in Moscow, Mariinsky and Alexandrinsky Theatres in Si Petersburg and Sergei Diaghilev''s Saisons Russes (1908,1910).