Studied at the Higher School of Art affiliated with the Imperial Academy of Arts, Petersburg (1905–1913) in the Department of Painting under D. N. Kardovsky. Exhibited from 1909. Member of the associations Soiuz russkikh khudozhnikov (Union of Russian Artists, 1911), Mir iskusstva (World of Art, 1913). Worked as an artist for the magazines (early 1910s) Apollon, Satyricon, Novyi (New) Satyricon, Niva (Field of Grain); the official artist in the two motor vehicle expeditions organized by the Citroën company – in Africa, Croisière Noire (1924–1925), and in Asia, Croisière Jaune (1931–1932). Taught in the Architectural Courses of Ye. F. Bagaeva (1915); the New Art Studio, Petrograd (1915); in the School of Painting and Drawing in Paris (1922) started by him together with V. I. Shukhaev; at the Fine Arts Museum School in Boston, USA (1934), head of the Department of Painting. Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, France (1916). Left Russia in 1917, lived in Mongolia, China, Japan (1916), from 1919 – in Paris, France.

© Museum of 20th–21st Century Art of St Petersburg, 2022