Léon Samoilovitch Bakst, born Grodno (now Belarus), 1866, was a Russian painter and scene and costume designer, associated with Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes for which he designed exotic, richly coloured stage sets and costumes.
He was a teacher of painting at a private Russian art school, tutoring the young artist Marc Chagall and painted commissions for Tsar Nicholas II.
In 1905 during the Russian Revolution he worked for various Russian magazines, and by 1909 was a stage designer who made his name as a scene-painter for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.
In 1914, Bakst was elected a member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts. He parted from the Ballet Russes in 1922 and visited the United States exhibiting in New York on numerous occasions.
Bakst died in 1924, near Paris aged 58