Bakst, Léon

Bakst, Léon

 orig. Lev Samuilovich Rosenberg

(born Jan. 27, 1866, St. Petersburg, Russia—died Dec. 28, 1924, Paris, France) Russian painter and stage designer. He attended the Imperial Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg and studied in Paris. In 1898 he cofounded the journal Mir Iskusstva (“World of Art”) with Sergey Diaghilev. He began designing scenery for the imperial theatres in 1900. In Paris he designed sets and costumes for Diaghilev's new Ballets Russes. His bold designs and sumptuous colours, conveying an exotic “Orientalism,” won him international fame. His designs for a London production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty in 1921 are regarded as his greatest work.