The exhibition brings together paintings and graphic works, sketches of decorations and costumes, drawings for fabrics and interior designs, photographs, documents and archival materials. Its structure combines chronological, geographical and thematic principles: having achieved recognition first in Russia, then the triumph in In Paris and on European stages, Bakst easily conquers America. At the same time, the individual stages of his creative biography do not exist in isolation — early themes, images and artistic solutions were developed in subsequent works.
The exhibition addresses Bakst’s main creative areas — participation in the Mir Iskusstva association, collaboration with Sergei Diaghilev and his Russian Seasons, as well as activities in the field of fashion, magazine illustration and industrial design.
A separate section is devoted to the interest in antiquity and the East, the journey of Lev Bakst and Valentin Serov to Greece in 1907, which had a significant impact on the work of both artists.
The exhibition concludes with the American period, when Bakst continued his work for the theater and fashion industry and turned to industrial and architectural design. This section presents sketches of ornaments for fabrics, in which the traditions of Russian “patterned” are reinterpreted.
An important place in the exhibition is occupied by photographs and documents from the artist’s archive. This complex of materials, unique in terms of volume and degree of detail, received at different times from family representatives, “first-hand”, defined the concept of the exhibition, allowing the exposition to be built, literally following the author, preserving the intonation of Bakst himself.
