Konstantin Andreevich Somov (18 [30] November 1869, St. Petersburg - May 6, 1939, Paris) - Russian painter and graphic artist, master of portrait and landscape, illustrator, one of the founders of the society "World of Art" and the magazine of the same name.
Full member of the Academy of Arts (1914). Konstantin was born into the family of the curator of the Hermitage, Andrei Ivanovich Somov. In 1879-1888 he studied at the K. May gymnasium together with A. Benois, V. Nouvel, D. Filosofov, with whom he later participated in the creation of the World of Art society. From September 1888 to March 1897 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts: the main course - until 1892, then, from October 1894, classes in the workshop of I. Repin. In 1894 he took part in the exhibition of the Society of Russian Watercolors for the first time. In 1897 and 1898 he studied at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. Somov is known as a master of book graphics, who created illustrations for "Count Nulin" by A. Pushkin (1899), stories by N. Gogol "The Nose" and "Nevsky Prospect" (1901). He also owns the covers of K. Balmonts poetry collections “The Firebird. Svirel of the Slav ", V. Ivanov" Cor Ardens ", the title page of the book by A. Blok" Theater ", etc.
In love with the 18th century, Somov mastered ancient techniques: for example, he used vellum paper, which was glued to soft textiles in order to change the movement of a pencil. Along with landscape and portrait painting and graphics, he worked in the field of small plastic arts: he made exquisite porcelain compositions "Count Nulin" (1899), "Lovers" (1905), etc.
The first personal exhibition of paintings, sketches and drawings (162 works) was held in St. Petersburg in 1903; in Hamburg and Berlin in the same year 95 works were shown. In 1918, the publishing house of Golike and Vilborg (Petrograd) published the most famous and complete edition with erotic drawings-illustrations by Somov: "The Book of the Marquise" ("Le livre de la Marquise"), where the artist created not only all the design elements of the book, but also picked up texts in French, and in 1919 his jubilee solo, exhibition was held at the Tretyakov Gallery.
In 1923 Somov left Russia for America as an authorized representative of the Russian Exhibition; in January 1924, at an exhibition in New York, Somov was presented with 38 works. He didn’t return to Russia. From 1925 he lived in France. For his friend (and executor) Mikhail Braikevich, in November-December 1934, he created four portraits of the heroine of the novel Dangerous Liaisons - this was his last work. Somov died suddenly on May 6, 1939 in Paris and was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery.