Boris Grigoriev
1886-1939
Born in Rybinsk, Grigoriev studied at the Stroganov Art School from 1903 to 1907 and at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg from 1907 to 1912. He began exhibiting his work in 1909 and became a member of the World of Art movement in 1913.
Another artist whose work fits into no category, the moniker ‘grotesque’ is perhaps the best. Grigoriev was very much part of the Russian pre-Revolutionary bohemian scene in St Petersburg and was close to many artists of the time: Velimir Khlebnikov, poet Anna Akhmatova, Boris Chaliapin and Meyerhold. Grigoriev’s portraits of these luminaries remain some of the most famous in Russian painting.
Grigoriev was also interested in Russian rural life. From 1916 to 1918 he created a series of paintings and graphic works, Raseja, that depicted both the poverty and strength of rural Russia and were a kind of testament to a dying world. The album started with Grigoriev’s poem, ‘To her stepsons’.
Grigoriev escaped Russia through Finland in 1919, settling in Germany, where his series ‘Russian Erotica’ won praise, and later censure by the Nazis. Ever restless, Grigoriev travelled abroad and lived in many countries, including France, the US, Central and South America, but he never hit the heights of his pre-exile work. He died in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1939.
