Ivan Bilibin

Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (Иван Яковлевич Билибин, ; 16 August 1876 – 7 February 1942) was a Russian illustrator and stage designer who took part in the Mir iskusstva ("World of Art"), contributed to the Ballets Russes, co-founded the Union of Russian Artists, and from 1937 was a member of the Artists' Union of the USSR. Ivan Bilibin gained popularity with his illustrations of Russian folk tales and Slavic folklore. Throughout his career he was inspired by the art and culture of medieval Russia.

Biography
Ivan Bilibin was born in Tarkhovka, a suburb of St. Petersburg. In 1898 he studied at Anton Ažbe's 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. Bilibin gained some success as early as 1899, when he first released illustrations for Russian fairy tales. The same year, after the formation of the artists' association Mir Iskusstva, in which Bilibin was an active member, his career as an illustrator of books and magazines began with a commission for its magazine Mir Iskusstva. He later also contributed essays on Russian folk art. Artistic designs for other magazines such as Dog Rose (Шиповник) and productions of a Moscow publishing house followed.

After graduating in May 1901, Bilibin went to Munich, where he completed his training with the painter Anton Ažbe.

In the period 1902 to 1904, working under the Russian Museum (Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III) Bilibin traveled to the Vologda, Olonetsk, and Arkhangelsk Governorates, performing ethnographic research and studying examples of Russian wooden architecture. In 1904 he published his findings in the monograph Folk Arts of the Russian North. Old Russian art had a great influence on his work. Another influence on his art was traditional Japanese prints and Renaissance woodcuts.

During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Bilibin drew revolutionary cartoons, especially for the magazine Zhupel (Жупелъ), which in 1906 was banned because of his illustration depicting the emperor as a donkey. In 1909 Bilibin served as the designer for the first stage production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel.

In 1911, Bilibin was hired by the State Paper Manufacturing Section to illustrate ball programs, exhibition and book posters, postcards for the Red Cross's Society of St. Eugenia, and envelopes and stationery with the Russian Bogatyrs.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Bilibin left Russia, the new Bolshevik government proving alien to him. Hungry for a new exotic environment, in 1920 Bilibin went to stay in Egypt. He moved to Cairo and Alexandria, where he painted for the Greek colony. In Cairo, he specialized in the Byzantine-style art that was in demand by the Greek colony for icons and frescoes. He was also enraptured by the architecture of mosques and their "head-spinning ornamentation". In 1925, Bilibin settled in Paris, where he took to decorating private houses and Orthodox churches. He still longed for his homeland, in 1936, and after decorating the Soviet Embassy, he returned to Soviet Russia. Bilibin died during the Siege of Leningrad, starving within the city when he refused to leave, and was buried in a collective grave.

Marital life
In 1902 Bilibin married his former student, the Irish-Russian painter and illustrator of children's stories Maria Chambers. They had two sons, Alexander (1903) and Ivan (1908). In 1912 he again married a former student, the art school graduate Renée O'Connell (Рене Рудольфовна О'Коннель), granddaughter of Daniel O'Connell. In 1923 he married the painter Aleksandra Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya (Александра Васильевна Щекатихина-Потоцкая), with whom he had a joint exhibition in Amsterdam in 1929.

Publications



 * Folktales published by the "Department for the Production of State Documents"
 * . alt link
 * , pdf
 * Collections in translated tales : 
 * , twelve selected illustrations
 * , selection from "State Department" work (1899-1902) that includes Sister Alionushka..; Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird, and the Grey Wolf; The Frog Tsarevna; Vasilisa..; Feather of Finist; White Duck; and Maria Morevna. Main illustrations only
 * , pdf
 * Collections in translated tales : 
 * , twelve selected illustrations
 * , selection from "State Department" work (1899-1902) that includes Sister Alionushka..; Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird, and the Grey Wolf; The Frog Tsarevna; Vasilisa..; Feather of Finist; White Duck; and Maria Morevna. Main illustrations only
 * , twelve selected illustrations
 * , selection from "State Department" work (1899-1902) that includes Sister Alionushka..; Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird, and the Grey Wolf; The Frog Tsarevna; Vasilisa..; Feather of Finist; White Duck; and Maria Morevna. Main illustrations only


 * Illustrations of Pushkin's tales
 * , unpublished
 * , unpublished
 * , unpublished


 * Other
 * , unpublished
 * , unpublished