Background
Vladimir Lebedev was born on May 26, 1891 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Vladimir Lebedev was born on May 26, 1891 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
As a young boy, Lebedev started to paint postcards that were sold in a shop in Saint St. Petersburg. At the age of nineteen, he held his first exhibit at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1913, he began work as a cartoonist for several satirical journals, including the famed "Satirikon" (Сатирикон).
At this time he was already a prolific illustrator for the children"s magazines "Jackdaw" (Галчонок), "Blue Journal" (Синий Журнал), "Everyone"s Journal" (Журнал для всех), and "Argus" (Аргус). He illustrated the children"s book "The Lion and the Bulletin" in 1917. From 1920-1922, Lebedev worked for The Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA) and The Department of Agitation" (Agitprop) designing propaganda posters.
By the 1920s, Lebedev had friendly relations with many distinguished persons of his time, such as Tatlin, Ivan Puni, Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Mayakovsky and the literary critic Nikolay Punin. "After his brilliant experiments with "Circus" and "Ice Cream" and a number of other children"s books executed by him, bookstores burst into color with numerous imitations of his examples, and book illustrations in the receding cultural tradition—all the "World of Art" illustrations—paled in comparison, and, in terms of form, began to seem impotent, overly concerned with aesthetics, and unexpressive." In 1930s-1940s he created numerous portraits of his friends, professional models and sportsmen.
From the end of the 1930s he started to use stronger colours and thicker layers of paint, creating effects reminiscent of the works of Renoir. The book Inside the Rainbow - Russian Children"s Literature 1920-1935: Beautiful Books, Terrible Times offered by Dutch publishers Pegasus details threats made by Soviet authorities against Lebedev. The book was the subject of reviews in The Guardian and The Financial Times, among other publications. In 2012, his work was included in an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Artist.
Correspondent member, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Academy of Arts from 1967.
He always was fond of playing sports.