Vladimir Polunin was born in Moscow, Russian Empire (now Russia) into a merchant family in 1880, receiving his artistic education in Paris and Munich and moving to England with his wife in 1908. Polunin worked as a set designer and set painter, including for Vatslav Nijinsky's dance company, Thomas Beecham's Opera Company and Sergei Diaghilev’s renowned Ballets Russes, of which he became chief scenographer. Polunin also collaborated with Sadlers Wells and the Phoenix Theatre in London and The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and taught at the Slade School of Fine Art, introducing the subject of stage design to the school's curriculum in 1929.
Scenographer and set designer Vladimir Polunin was born in Moscow, Russian Empire (now Russia) in 1880, into a merchant family. He graduated from the St Petersburg Forestry Academy, after which he briefly worked as a forester in Silesia (a region in modern day Poland). Polunin subsequently received his artistic education in Munich and Paris. It was in the French capital that he met his future wife and main artistic collaborator, English-born Elizabeth Violet Hart (1887-1950), who studied at Académie Colarossi and École des Beaux-Arts and later continued her training in St Petersburg under Léon Bakst. Polunin and Hart married in St Petersburg in 1907.
In 1908, Polunin and his wife moved to England and settled in London. From the outset, Polunin worked predominantly as a set designer and set painter, including for Vatslav Nijinsky's dance company (1914) and Thomas Beecham's Opera Company (Otello, 1916). In 1918–25, together with his wife, Polunin worked for Sergei Diaghilev's renowned Ballets Russes, becoming chief scenographer for the company and travelling regularly between London and Paris. He produced scenes based on the costume and set designs by Alexander Benois, Bakst, Henri Matisse, Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso. When Picasso spent ten weeks in London during the summer of 1919 to produce designs for the Ballets Russes' production of Le Tricorne, he worked at Polunin's Covent Garden studio at 48 Floral Street; a plaque outside the building today commemorates Picasso's stay. In 1924, together with Georges Braque, André Derain, Marie Laurencin and Picasso, Polunin took part in the creation of designs for a set of performances entitled Soirées de Paris, which combined ballet with poetry and theatre. Polunin and his wife were also responsible for the scenery design of another key Ballets Russes' production from this period, Le Beau Danube (1924). In 1925, Polunin executed a curtain depicting St George and the dragon for the Russian ballet season at the London Coliseum. This design is now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London. A very close version of the same design was reproduced as the frontispiece to Polunin's The Continental Method of Scene Painting (London, 1927, edited by Cyril W. Beaumont), where the work is described: 'In order to separate the performance of the Diaghileff Company from the varied programme of a music-hall, I was commissioned to design a drop-curtain which should at once effect this purpose and be symbolical of the spirit of the Russian ballet [...]' At a later stage, Polunin also collaborated with Sadlers Wells and the Phoenix Theatre in London and The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Although predominantly a scenographer, over the course of his career, Polunin carried out a number of other commissions. These included a set of painted wooden toys, commissioned from him by the British Board of Trade, which were reproduced in The Studio magazine in 1916. Additionally, according to Aldous Huxley, who wrote an article on Polunin in a 1923 issue of Vogue, Polunin decorated a overmantel at artist Eric Kennington's house and produced wall paintings for Gorgone's restaurant. In 1930–34, Polunin also executed a number of poster designs for the Underground Group and London Transport; these are currently in the collections of the London Transport Museum and the V&A.
Polunin took part in several group exhibitions of Russian art, including at the Whitechapel Gallery (1921), Prince Galitzine's Gallery (1931) and at No. 1 Belgrave Square (1935). Polunin also had several solo exhibitions in London, including at the Goupil Gallery (1913), Claridge Gallery (1926), Lefevre Gallery (1927) and Stafford Gallery (1939, together with his wife). In a review of Polunin’s 1926 exhibition The Observer art critic P. G. Konody praised the artist’s abstract geometry of his landscape compositions, of which ‘Pines by the Lake is the most impressive in its inexorable logic of design’, adding that Polunin’s ‘figure compositions, mostly of Scriptural subjects, are clearly derived from Russian ikons, but also betray an intimate acquaintance with the art of El Greco. He is an artist who knows how to express his emotions in terms of form and colour’ (Konody 1926, p. 5). Polunin also showed his works at the Royal Academy of Arts and was a member of the Chelsea Arts Club. In 1929, Polunin introduced the subject of stage design to the Slade School of Fine Art's curriculum, the first of its kind at an English art school. Polunin taught at Slade until 1949; one of his postwar students was Polish émigré painter and designer, Jan Wieliczko. Elizabeth and Vladimir Polunin had three sons who all became distinguished scientists: Oleg Polunin was an English botanist, teacher and traveller; Nicholas Polunin (1909-1997) was an arctic explorer and environmentalist, and Ivan Polunin (1920-2010) was a medical anthropologist. Vladimir Polunin died in Godalming, Surrey, England on 11 March 1957. His work is represented in UK public collections including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Doncaster Museum and Gallery, London Transport Museum and V&A, among others.
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