pastmalebeauty:Konstantin Andreyevich Somov (1869-1939) and his model, and possible lover Bor
pastmalebeauty: Konstantin Andreyevich Somov (1869-1939) and his model, and possible lover Boris Mikhailovich Snejkovsky (1910-1978) 1.Somov - The Boxer, with Boris as model. 2. Somov - Man with a cigarette, again modelled by Boris 3. & 4. - Konstantin in later life. Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from 1888 to 1897. While at the Academy, he befriended Alexandre Benois, who would introduce him to Sergei Diaghilev and Léon Bakst. When the three founded the World of Art, Somov liberally contributed to its periodicals. Somov was homosexual, like many of the World of Art members. Following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to the United States, but found the country “absolutely alien to his art” and moved to Paris. Gay Russian artist Konstantin Somov met Boris Snejkovsky in 1930, when Boris was 20, and Somov was 60. Boris was the man who inspired and sat for several portraits by the artist between 1930 and 1937. Boris was the artistic muse to Somov in the last decade of his life, their lifestyle would suggest were lovers, but it is nor known for certain. The collaborative relationship between Konstantin Somov and Boris Snejkovsky lasted seven years and the portraits of the young man changed in style going from vividly realistic studies of pure musculature to sensitive nudes bathed in golden light to intimate full-face portraits in soft, fuzzy colours. Art experts sometimes say this reflect Somov’s changing feelings for his handsome muse. While others say it was simply a development in style. In 2007, Somov’s landscape “The Rainbow” (1927) was sold at Christie’s for US$7.33 million, a record for a work at an auction of Russian art. Little is known of Boris. He did marry and fathered a daughter after his military service in World War Two. In 1978, at the age of sixty-seven, he committed suicide. He is buried in the Russian cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois in Paris near Somov’s grave.. -- source link