An artist from St Petersburg, Mikhail Bobyshov later became a leading Russian theatrical designer and portraitist. His oeuvre was much influenced by the aesthetics of the World of Art. Painted in cold, silvery-blue tones, Harlequinade depicts a scene from Michel Fokine’s ballet . Set to the music of Robert Schumann, Carnaval took Europe by storm as part of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris in 1910. Bobyshov depicts Michel Fokine (1880–1942) and his wife Vera (1886–1958) dancing in the premieres of Diaghilev’s legendary seasons.

Bobyshov Mikhail

BOBYSHOV, MIKHAIL PAVLOVICH (1885, Pogoreloe, Tver Province — 1964, Leningrad)
Theatrical designer, painter, graphic artist. Studied at the Baron Stieglitz Central School of Technical Drawing in St Petersburg (1900– 1907). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1912). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Fellowship of Independent Artists (1912–1916), Arkhip Kuindzhi Society (1917, 1918), First State Free Exhibition of Works of Art (1919), Sixteen (1922–1927), Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (1925); the Exhibition of Russian Art in New York (1924). Designed for theatres in St Petersburg (from 1911). Taught at the Tech¬nical College of Art and Industry in Leningrad (1924–1928) and the Higher Art and Technical Institute / Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1926–1964, professor from 1939).