Creativity without waste is impossible — Alexander Liberman

Alexander Liberman was a prominent representative of the American intelligentsia, Russian emigre, who changed the pop culture of the twentieth century. You know, he was the king and god of the publishing house Conde Nast. By the way, Alexander was an editor, a publisher, a painter, a photographer, and a sculptor.
The boy was born on September 4, 1912. Nine years later his family fled from Moscow.
Young Liberman was educated in Russia, England, and France. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Sorbonne in Paris and architecture at the School of Fine Arts in London.
In Paris Alexander fell in love with Tatiana Yacovleff du Plessix, who was six years older. Their love affair began when the Viscount du Plessis was alive. In 1940 Viscount was killed by Nazis.
Alexander, Tatiana and her daughter Francine fled first to the south of France, and then to New York, the city where Lieberman was destined to become a ruthless and ironic shark of bohemian world.
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Creating pictures, Marc Chagall was guided exclusively by instinct: the composition, proportions and chiaroscuro were alien to him. He was one of the most successful artists of the 20th century.
Movsha Hatskelevich (later Moses Hatskelevich and Mark Zakharovich) Chagall was born on July 6, 1887 in Vitebsk, Russian Empire. The head of the family worked as a loader and the mother was a housewife.
At the age of five, Movsha, like every Jewish boy, entered a cheder (elementary school), where he studied prayers and the Law of God. The boy was fond of drawing.
“My mother told me that when I was born, a huge fire had engulfed the city, and to save us, the bed in which we were both lying, was being moved from place to place. Maybe that’s why I always feel the need to go somewhere.” Chagall was restless, like a migratory bird.
Once in his childhood a gypsy foretold him that he would have an extraordinary life, would love one extraordinary woman and two ordinary, and would die … in flight.
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The ingenious works of Vladimir Mayakovsky are truly admired by millions of his fans. He deservedly belongs to the number of the greatest futurist poets of the 20th century. In addition, Mayakovsky proved himself to be an extraordinary playwright, satirist, film director, screenwriter, artist, and also editor of several magazines. His life, multifaceted creativity, as well as personal relationships, were full of love and experience.
A talented poet was born on July 19, 1893 in Baghdati, a small Georgian village in Russian Empire. His mother Alexandra Alekseevna belonged to the Cossack family from the Kuban, and his father Vladimir Konstantinovich worked as a simple forester. Vladimir had two brothers – Kostya and Sasha, who died in their childhood, as well as two sisters – Olya and Lyuda.
Mayakovsky knew Georgian perfectly well and from 1902 he studied at gymnasium in Kutaisi. Already in his youth he was full of revolutionary ideas, and, while studying at the gymnasium, he participated in a revolutionary demonstration.
In 1906, his father died. The cause of death was the blood infection as a result of a finger prick with a simple needle. This event shocked Mayakovsky and later he completely avoided pins and needles.
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Fyodor Rokotov was a Russian artist, the largest Moscow portraitist, who worked during the Russian Age of Enlightenment. He became one of the favorite masters of the Russian nobility. Rokotov was the most poetic portraitist of the eighteenth century.
The boy was born in the thirties of the XVIII century in the Prince Repnin’s estate Vorontsovo near Moscow. The future artist was the son of a serf.
In 1755, I. Shuvalov came to Moscow to recruit gifted young men for the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He noticed Rokotov and took him to the capital. In the first years after his arrival in Petersburg, he painted mainly Cadets. After receiving the rank of captain, he resigned from military service.
Since 1757 the Academy was located in the house of Shuvalov. According to Jakob Stelin, Rokotov was taught by foreign masters Louis Le Lorrain and Pietro Rotari. In 1760 the young artist entered the Academy on Count Shuvalov’s recommendation.
You know, in 1763 he was invited to Moscow to paint a coronation portrait of Catherine II. The Empress liked her portrait very much and ordered to depict her face according to the originals of Rokotov. At the same time, he painted the portrait of the empress’ favourite Grigory Orlov.
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Fyodor Vasiliev was a Russian landscape painter. He lived a short life, but his contribution to Russian art is great. The artist left wonderful pictures of his native nature, where truthfulness is combined with subtle, soulful lyricism. In his landscapes there is always a living excitement of the artist, who was in love with the beauty of nature.
Contemporaries, and later researchers saw Vasiliev as an artist who could make a huge revolution in all landscape painting.
The boy was born on February 10 (22), 1850 in Gatchina (now Leningrad Region) into the family of a small postal official from St. Petersburg.
At the age of twelve he was sent to serve in the main post office. Since his early childhood he showed his ability and interest in drawing. The boy quit his service and went to study at the Drawing School in Petersburg (1865-1868). By the end of his studies Vasiliev had become friends with Kramskoi and Shishkin.
An important event for the young artist was his trip to the island of Valaam. Fyodor along with I. Shishkin worked there for more than five months: from June until late autumn of 1867. In 1869 Vasiliev traveled to Tambov province, to the estate of Count P.S. Stroganov, the village of Znamenskoe (in the summer), and to the Ukraine. Those trips played a favorable role in the development of the artist’s original talent.
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Mikhail Vrubel was a bright representative of the artistic elite of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. He was convinced that creativity, like a magic crystal directing a person, can lead a traveler astray into labyrinths of art, either to heaven or to hell. The creator was able to penetrate beyond the bounds of earthly existence with all the power of his talent, to sketch pictures inaccessible to the eyes of ordinary inhabitants and present them to the art lovers.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel was born on March 5, 1856 in Omsk. His father Alexander Mikhailovich was a participant of the Crimean War and military operations in the Caucasus, a military lawyer. The mother Anna Grigorievna, a relative of Decembrist Basargin, gave birth to 4 children and died when Mikhail was three years old. Two years later, his father married pianist Elizaveta Khristianovna Vessel.
In 1865 the family moved to the Volga region, where Lieutenant-Colonel Vrubel took command of the provincial garrison. In Saratov Mikhail saw a copy of the fresco The Last Judgment by the Italian sculptor and painter Michelangelo. The boy was able to reproduce it with all the characteristic details.
Mikhail’s professional activity had been predetermined since his birth. The gifted boy was not enthusiastic about the prospect of becoming a lawyer, but he did not dare go against his father’s will.
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Yelizaveta Tarakhovskaya was a Russian poetess, playwright, translator and author of children’s books. You know, she is a sister of poets Valentin Parnakh (twin) and Sofia Parnok.
Liza Parnokh (her birth name) was born on July 26, 1891 in Taganrog into a family of pharmacist. Her father Yakov Solomonovich Parnokh was a pharmacist and an owner of the pharmacy, an honorary citizen of Taganrog. And her mother Alexandra Abramovna Parnoh, nee Idelson, was a doctor. By the way, her brother Valentin Parnakh was the founder of Soviet Jazz music.
The girl graduated from the Mariinskaya Gymnasium in Taganrog with a gold medal. Then she studied at the Bestuzhev courses in Petrograd.
In 1920, she married “the son of a Taganrog merchant” Alexander Abramovich Tarakhovsky in Rostov. His father, literary and theater critic Abram Tarakhovsky (pseudonym A. Darov) published his works in the Taganrog Gazette, worked for Priazovsky Krai newspaper and was in correspondence with A. P. Chekhov. The marriage did not last long.
Actually, Yelizaveta started to write poems in her childhood. She is an author of numerous children’s books in different genres (poetry, prose, drama).
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