Léopold Survage

Painter, graphic artist, applied artist, theatrical designer, illustrator, decorator, writer on art. Born in Moscow in the family of the Finnish owner of a piano factory called Leopold Sturzwage (1879). Studied under Konstantin Korovin and Leonid Pasternak at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1901–09), where he met Mikhail Larionov, David Burliuk, Sergei Sudeikin and Nikolai Sapunov. Lived in Paris (from 1909), working as a piano tuner at Dom Pleyel and attending the academies of Henri Matisse and Filippo Colarossi. Member of the circle of Baroness Hélène d’Oettingen, Serge Férat, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Pablo Picasso and Gino Severini. Created a cycle of works entitled Three Forms of Action of Rhythm in Colour (c. 1914). Wrote about colour rhythm in Les Soirées de Paris and a technical work for the Academy of Sciences. Founded the Golden Section with Alexander Archipenko and Albert Gleizes (1920). Designed for Sergei Diaghilev and theatres in Paris (from 1922). Created a series of monumental panels and religious compositions and designed textiles for the Chanel fashion house (1920s–30s). Member of the Salon d’Automne (1943). Painted a fresco at the Palace of Congresses in Leget, designed gobelins and illustrated literature (1950s–60s). Awarded the National Prize of France (1960), medal of the city of Paris (1967), cavalier (1954) and Légion d’honneur (1963). Died in Paris (1968). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1904). Contributed to the exhibitions of Stephanos (1907–08), Knave of Diamonds (1910–11), Salon d’Automne (from 1911), Salon des Indépendants (1914, 1920–23, 1925–28), Salon des Tuileries (1926–29), Super-Independent (1929, 1930), May (1968), Golden Section in Rotterdam, Hague, Amsterdam, Geneva, Rome and Milan (1920s), Contemporary French Painting in London (1919), Moscow (1928), Masters of Cubism (Paris, 1921), Paintings of Paris from American Collections (New York, 1930), The Russian Ballet of Diaghilev. 1909–29 (Paris, 1939), Art of Our Times (New York, 1939), In Honour of Victory (Paris, 1946), Russian Artists of the Paris School (Saint-Denis, 1960; Paris, 1961), In Honour of Apollinaire (Paris, 1963), Russian Contribution to the Art of the Avant-Garde (Rome and Milan, 1964), international exhibitions in Milan (1928), New York (1934), Paris (1937, gold medal), Genoa (biannual, 1951 – First Prize) and Brussels (1958, gold medal) and one-man shows in Paris (1917, 1922, 1925, 1927, 1931, 1933, 1950s, 1960s), Naples (1950s, 1960s), Lausanne (1950s, 1960s), Turin (1950s, 1960s), Cologne (1960), Helsinki (1961) and Lyons (1968).