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Memoirs: Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--1961.
Memoirs: Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--1967.
Memoirs: Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--1964.
Memoirs: Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--1970.
Vera Aleksandrovna Popova (Popoff), Russian sculptress and artist, was born in Moscow in 1882 to a prominent family of textile tycoons. Her well established in Russian society family produced a number of intellectuals, including Vera's brother, theater director Nikolai Popov (1871-1949) and Vera's cousins, famous artist Liubov Popova (Popoff; 1889-1924) and well known philosopher Pavel Popov (1892-1964).
After graduation from the Stroganov Art Institute in Moscow where Vera was a pupil of sculptor N. A. Andreev, she spent seven years in Paris (1906-1913). She came back to Russia right before World War I and actively participated in Russian art scene. Her work was shown in many prestigious exhibitions including Mir Iskusstva. In 1918, she authored a project of architect M. F. Kazakov's statue and a monument entitled "To Liberated Labor" in 1919. She was a member of a group of sculptors named "Monolith".
In 1922, Vera Popova immigrated to France. She lived in Paris together with Russian artist N. A. Lazarev (Lazareff) and often exhibited her bronze and batiks in the Autumn Salon.
In 1924-1929, she worked with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. In 1929-1931, along with Ivan Bilibin, she designed sets and costumes for two operas at the Elysian Fields Theater in Paris ("A Tale of the King of Saltane" by Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov, and "Boris Godunov" by Modest Mussorgskii), and Igor Stravinskii's ballet "Firebird" for the theater Colon in Buenos-Aires. In 1937, she executed set design for the ballet "The Three-Cornered Hat" by Manuel de Falla according to Picasso's sketches n Drury Lane Theater in London. In 1959, she exhibited her bronze bas-reliefs including portrait of Boris Pasternak in Grand-Palais in Paris.
Vera Popova moved to Cannes in 1968 and lived in a nursing home "Regina" where she died in 1970.
Bakhmeteff Archive. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Columbia University.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Vera Aleksandrovna Popova Memoirs; Box and Folder; Bakhmeteff Archive, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Memoirs Accessioned 1961.
Memoirs Accessioned 1967.
Memoirs Processed 11/--/80.
Memoirs Accessioned 1964.
Memoirs Accessioned 1970.
Popova's disjointed memoirs "Popovskaia khronika" discuss her family and ancestors, artistic and cultural life in pre-revolutionary Moscow, and the emigration in France. Among the people who appear in these memors are Sergei Diagilev, Savva Mamontov, Maksim Gorky, Serafim Sud'binin, Mikhail Larionov, and Nataliia Goncharova. Also included is a typescript biography (29 p.) of her cousin, Pavel S. Popov (1892-1964), by an unidentified Soviet author. Popov, who married a granddaughter of Lev Tolstoi, was the author of "Istoriia logiki novogo vremeni" (1960), and taught philosophy at Moscow University. This manuscript touches on his family, education, professional career in the Soviet Union, and, in great detail, his family troubles in the last years of his life.
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