ELENA BEBUTOVA (1892–1970) Stage Design

signed in Cyrillic ‘E. Bebutova’ (lower left) watercolour, pencil and gouache on paper 11.6 × 16.8 cm Elena Bebutova belonged to a Georgian noble family of Armenian origin, several members of which were associated with the theatre. She studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in Saint Petersburg (1907–1914), where her teachers included Ivan Bilibin and Nicholas Roerich. She worked on theatrical set designs for the Moscow Art Theatre together with Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and her works were exhibited in Moscow and Leningrad as well as in exhibitions of Russian art abroad, including in Japan, the United States, Austria, Germany, Sweden and Norway. She was also the wife and frequent model of the painter Pavel Kuznetsov, leader of the Blue Rose group and a prominent representative of Russian Symbolism.