Vladimir Bechteev

Vladimir Bechteev was a Russian painter, graphic artist, illustrator and set designer who trained in St Petersburg before moving to Munich in 1902, where he studied under Heinrich Knirr and later at Fernand Cormon's studio in Paris. In 1911 he became a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) alongside Kandinsky and Franz Marc, having already joined the Munich New Artists' Association in 1909. He later worked in Soviet arts administration and as art director of Moscow's First State Circus, was deported to Siberia in 1941, and did not return until 1949.