Lev (Leon) Samoilovich Bakst (real name - Leib-Khaim Izrailevich Rosenberg (1866-1924). Member of the association "World of Art" and theatrical and artistic projects of S. P. Diaghilev, one of the trendsetters of European fashion for exotic and Orientalism at the beginning of XX century.
Since the mid-1890s, he joined the circle of writers and artists that had formed around Sergei Diaghilev and Alexander Benois, which later became the World of Art association. Bakst also collaborated with other then popular publications - "Golden Fleece", "Apollo", "Libra" [10]. In 1898, together with Diaghilev, he took part in the founding of the publication of the same name. The graphics published in this magazine brought fame to Bakst. He continued to study easel painting, creating portraits of Alexander Benois (1899), Philip Malyavin (1899), Vasily Rozanov (1901), Andrei Bely (1905), Zinaida Gippius, Sergei Diaghilev (1906). He also taught painting to the children of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. In 1902 in Paris he received an order from Nicholas II for the painting "Meeting of Russian sailors".
Bakst's brushes belong to portraits of many artists: Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Mikhail Fokine, Ida Rubinstein, Claude Debussy, Jean Cocteau, Andrei Bely, etc.
From 1910 he lived in Paris and worked on theatrical scenery, in which he made a real revolution. He went down in history as the designer of the performances of Diaghilev's Russian ballet "Cleopatra" (1909); Carnival, Scheherazade and The Firebird (1910); "Narcissus" and "The Vision of a Rose" (1911), "Afternoon of a Faun" and "Daphnis and Chloe" (1912), the sets and costumes for which caused a real sensation and became a "revolution" in the fashion world [20]. Bakst's stylizations, his creative rethinking of ancient and oriental motifs created a fashion in Europe for turbans, wide trousers, kimonos, Persian embroidery and ornaments.
Knight Commander of the Legion of Honor (1924) ..