- Born
- Died
- Birth nameLev Samoilovich Rosenberg
- Léon Bakst was born on May 10, 1866 in Grodno, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was a costume designer, known for The Secret Spring (1923), Great Performances: Dance in America (1976) and Baryshnikov: Live at Wolf Trap (1976). He died on December 27, 1924 in Paris, France.
- As his grandfather was an exceptional tailor, the Tsar gave him a very good position, and he had a huge and wonderful house in Saint Petersburg.
- From 1893 to 1897 he lived in Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian. He still often visited Saint Petersburg.
- At the time of his first exhibition (1889) he took the surname of Bakst, though the origin of the pseudonym is still unclear. There are at least three versions, according to the main one, his mother's grandmother had the maiden name Bakster. Alexander Benois, a life-long friend of Leon, recalled that 'Leo gave a prolonged and confusing explanation that the surname was taken after some of distant relatives'.
- During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Bakst worked for the magazines Zhupel, Adskaya Pochta, Mir Iskusstva (magazine), and Satirikon , then for an art magazine called Apollon.
- He was a Russian painter and scene and costume designer of Jewish origin.
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