Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (, ; – 7 February 1942) was a Russian illustrator and stage designer who took part in the Mir iskusstva ("World of Art"), contributed to the Ballets Russes, co-founded the Union of Russian Artists, and from 1937 was a member of the Artists' Union of the USSR. Ivan Bilibin gained popularity with his illustrations of Russian folk tales and Slavic folklore. Throughout his career he was inspired by the art and culture of medieval Russia.
Biography
Early life
Ivan Bilibin was born on in Tarkhovka, Saint Petersburg. He was born to Yakov Ivanovich Bilibin, assistant chief physician at the Saint Petersburg Naval Hospital, and Vavara Alexandrova Bilibina ( Bubnova).
In 1890, Bilibin was accepted into the First Saint Petersburg Gymnasium. He graduated from the Gymnasium with a silver medal in 1896. From 1895 to the spring of 1898, he studied at the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. In 1896 Bilibin began studying at the law faculty of the University of Saint Petersburg, and he completed his course there in 1900. Bilibin received a lawyer's diploma in the same year from the Law Faculty of Novorossiysk University. and then under Ilya Repin at Princess Maria Tenisheva's School in Saint Petersburg from 1898 to 1900. Artistic designs for other magazines such as Dog Rose (Шиповник) and productions of a Moscow publishing house followed.
After graduating in May 1901, Bilibin went to Munich, where he completed his training with the painter Anton Ažbe.
In the period 1902 to 1904, working under the Russian Museum (Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III) Bilibin traveled to the Vologda, Olonetsk, and Arkhangelsk Governorates, performing ethnographic research and studying examples of Russian wooden architecture. In 1904 he published his findings in the monograph Folk Arts of the Russian North. Old Russian art had a great influence on his work. Another influence on his art was traditional Japanese prints and Renaissance woodcuts. In 1909 Bilibin served as the designer for the first stage production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel.
In 1910, Bilibin left the Union of Russian Artists, as a result of differences in approach to their creative work.
In March 1916 Bilibin was elected chairman of the World of Art group.
At the end of 1912, Bilibin entered a common law marriage with former student and artist Renée O'Connell (although Bilibin was still legally married to his first wife, Maria Chambers). Bilibin was 15 years her senior, and together they travelled around the Crimean peninsula to draw.
By 1917, the relationship struggled due to Bilibin's drinking. The couple entered an agreement, witnessed by their friend musician , that if Bilibin did not drink for a year, then O'Connell would stay with him. Bilibin did not keep his word, and O'Connell left Bilibin in September 1917, with Bilibin travelling to Crimea alone following the events of the Russian Revolution.
Mitusov wrote a comic poem about the breakdown of the couple's relationship. However, they were divorced by 1923.