Alexandre Arnstam

Graphic artist, painter, theatrical designer, cinema designer. Born in Moscow in the family of a textile manufacturer called Martyn Arnshtam (1880). Studied painting at Konstantin Juon’s studio, Académie de la Palette and Académie de la Grande-Chaumiere in Paris. Studied chemistry, philosophy, anatomy and the history of art at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Universitat in Berlin (from 1901). Spent two years in France and Switzerland (1905–07). Graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. Lived in St Petersburg/Petrograd (1908–19). Designed such periodicals as Golden Fleece, Argus and Sun of Russia. Illustrated Innokenty Annensky’s Cypress Casket and Maximilian Voloshin’s Poems 1900–10. Worked for Narkompros as director of the first regional school of art of the Petrograd Union of Artists and a member of the Department for the Preservation of Works of History and Art. Arrested by the Cheka (1919) and imprisoned in Petrograd and Moscow (1919–20). Lived in Moscow (1920–21). Emigrated to Berlin (1921) and Paris (1933). Died in Paris (1969). Contributed to the exhibitions of Graphic Art, Nadezhda Dobychina Bureau d’Art (1910) and the World of Art (1915–17).