Konstantin Somov: 120 Masterpieces

Konstantin Andreyevich Somov was a Russian artist associated with the World of Art. Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator Andrey Ivanovich Somov, he became interested in the 18th-century art and music at an early age. Inspired by Watteau and Fragonard, he preferred to work with watercolors and gouache. For three years he worked upon his masterpiece, Lady in Blue, painted in the manner of 18th-century portraitists. During the 1910s, Somov executed a number of rococo harlequin scenes and illustrations to the poems by Alexander Blok. Many of his works were exhibited abroad, especially in Germany, where the first monograph on him was published in 1909. Following the Russian Revolution, he immigrated to the United States, but found the country "absolutely alien to his art" and moved to Paris. He was buried at the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery.