
Sudeikin's poster for the Chauve-Souris Theatre
1922.
'Sergey Yurievich Sudeikin', also known as 'Serge Soudeikine' (1882-1946), was a
Russian artist and set-designer associated with the
Ballets Russes and the
Metropolitan Opera.
Having been banned from the
Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for his "obscene drawings", Sudeikin joined the
Mir Iskusstva movement. His close friends included the poet
Mikhail Kuzmin and the impresario
Serge Diaghilev, at whose invitation he came to
Paris in
1906 for the Salon d'Automne Exhibition, where his work was first shown abroad. In
1907-
1918, he was married to actress
Olga Glebova (1885-1945), one of the famed beauties of
St Petersburg and the closest friend of
Anna Akhmatova. Glebova-Sudeikina is the principal character and addressee of Akhmatova's longest work, "The Poem Without Hero" (1940-65).
Sudeikin designed the sets and costumes for Diaghilev's production of ''La tragédie de Salomé'' by
Florent Schmitt in 1913, and assisted in the execution of
Nicholas Roerich's designs for
Stravinsky's ''
The Rite of Spring'' the same year. By the time of the
October Revolution Sudeikin was among the foremost theatrical designers in Russia. In 1913 he had eloped to Paris with the dancer
Vera de Bosset, whom he subsequently married, and who in the 1920s left him to become the mistress and ultimately second wife of Stravinsky.
External links
★
Russian biography
★
Akhmatova's poem addressed to Sudeikin