Nikolai Milioti

Painter, graphic artist, theatrical designer, teacher. Brother of the artist and critic Vasily Milioti (1875–1943). Born in the family of Dmitry Milioti in Moscow (1874). Studied at Moscow University and the Sorbonne, under Abram Arkhipov, Leonid Pasternak and Valentin Serov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1894–1900), in the private studio of Konstantin Korovin and under Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant at the Académie Rodolphe Julian in Paris (late 1890s). Painted typical works of Moscow Symbolism inspired by Paul Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes (1900s–early 1910s). Life member of the Salon d’Automne in Paris (from 1906), founding member of the Society of Free Aesthetics (1907), member of the Union of Russian Artists (1904–10), committee member of the World of Art (from 1910) and the Union of Russian Artists in France (from 1931). Helped to organise the Blue Rose exhibition in Moscow (1907). Collaborated with the Golden Fleece magazine. Fought on the Austrian front during the First World War (1914–17). Moved to Yalta (1918), where he worked as chairman of the Commission for the Protection of Crimean Artistic Treasures. Emigrated to Bulgaria (1920), lived in Berlin (1921–22) and Paris (from 1923), where he designed sets and costumes for the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier. Visited America (1925). Travelled across Italy, Spain, Holland and Germany. Taught at Tatyana Sukhotina-Tolstaya’s Académie Russe in Paris (1929–30). Evacuated to Biarritz (1940–42), returned to Paris (1942). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1905). Contributed to the exhibitions of the New Society of Artists (1905), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1905), Union of Russian Artists (1906–10), World of Art (1906, 1911, 1912), Blue Rose (1907), Esposizione Internazionale in Venice (1907), Wreath-Stephanos (1908), Sergei Makovsky Salon (1909), Exposition Universelle et Internationale in Brussels (1910, honorary medal), Second Secession in Rome (1914), Art in the Crimea (1918), the exhibitions of Russian art in Paris (1906, 1921, 1927, 1932), Berlin (1906, 1922) and Vienna (1908) and exhibitions in Birmingham (1928), Brussels (1928), Copenhagen (1929), Belgrade (1930), Paris (1929, 1931, 1932), London (1935) and Prague (1938). One-man shows in Brussels (1907), Yalta (1920), Paris (1929, 1930, 1931, 1938) and Biarritz (1949).