KONSTANTIN SOMOV (1869-1939)

Konstantin Andreyevich Somov (1869-1939) was a Russian artist associated with the Mir Iskusstva.  Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator, he became interested in the 18th century art and music at an early age. Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of arts under Ilya Repin from1888 to 1897.  While at the Academy, he befriended Alexandre Benois, who would introduce him to Sergei Diaghilev and Leon Bakst. When the three founded the World of Art, Somov liberally contributed to its periodicals.  Inspired by Watteau and Fragonard, he prefered to work with watercolors and gouache.  His early work was mainly landsapes, but from about 1900 he began to paint romantic scenes of marquisses, harlequins, etc. set in the Rococo and early 19th century periods.  Also painted portraits.  In 1903 he had a first one – man exhibition in St. Petersburg.  In 1900-1910, Somov’s works wre shown at exhibitions of “World of Art” society, Union of Russian painters, Munich and Berlin Sessecions, autumn Salon of 1906 in Paris and others.  

The artist became widely known in Europe and was especially popular in Germany, where, in 1907, the first monograph about him was published by Oscar Bic.  (Konstantin Somov. by Oscar Bic. Berlin, 1907) In 1913 Somov became an American, and in 1918 a professor of the Art College.  Following the Russian Revolution, at the end of 1923, he emigrated to the United States, but found the country “absolutely alien to his art” and in the summer of 1925, he moved to Paris.  Konstantin Somov died in Paris in 1939 and was buried at the Sainte Genevieve-des-Bois Cemetery.

His works are in the The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; State Tretyakov gallery, Moscow;  Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, UK, National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan, and many other leading museums and prominent private collections in Europe and America.