Serafim Nikolayevich Sudbinin

Place: Nijni Novgorod

Born: 1867

Death: 1944

Biography:

Séraphin Nikolaevich Soudbinine, also known as Serafim Nikolayevich Sudbinin, was a Russian sculptor, painter, ceramicist and stage actor, associated with the Moscow Art Theatre. He was born on March 21, 1867 in Nijni Novgorod, Russian Empire and died on November 1, 1944 in Paris, France. He started his career on stage in the late 1880s in Nizhny Drama Theatre, where he adopted the stage name Sudbinin. In May 1898, he joined the Moscow Art Theatre's original troupe and took part in its very first production, Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. He took part in all the company's major productions, including Men Above the Law, Antigone, The Death of Ivan the Terrible, Twelfth Night, Snow Maiden, The Philistines, and The Power of Darkness. He was a substitute for Stanislavsky as Vershinin in Chekhov's The Three Sisters and as Satin in The Lower Depths. In the early 1900s, he became increasingly interested in sculpture, painting, and photography. His first sculptures were exhibited in 1906 at the Moscow Art Theatre. He was an assistant to Auguste Rodin for ten years and was the praticien for Rodin's 'La main de Dieu ou la Création'. He exposed at the Salon des artistes russes, the Salon d'automne, and the Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts. He realized the busts of artists of Russian renown such as Stanislavski, Leonid Sobinov, Gorki, and the composer Scriabin.