Marina Erastovna Makovskaya (née Ryndina, first married name Khodasevich) (1886–1973): Wife of the art critic and editor of the Apollo periodical Sergei Makovsky.
Many leading Russian masters turned to official portraiture at the turn of the century. Some regarded it as a chance to incarnate their artistic concepts in a large style; others sought historical retrospectives within the context of the stylistic assimilation of the art of the past. Alexander Golovin offers his own version of an official commissioned portrait. As in many of his works, the roles of the lines and the silhouette are of primary importance. Accorded the most important place in the planar-decorative system, the contours and lines organise the field of the canvas, bringing out the artificial nature of the background. The modelled face of the sitter stands out from the flat space of the picture, commanding attention like an original relief.

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).