Simov Viktor Andreevich

Russian and Soviet artist and set designer. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1932). He graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1882. In the 1880s Simov worked as an illustrator for the Alarm Clock magazine. Exhibiting his paintings at traveling exhibitions, and later at exhibitions of the Moscow Association of Artists. In 1885-1886 he worked as a decorator at a private Russian opera, doing easel painting and lithography. In 1896, a joint exhibition of paintings by Isaac Levitan, Victor Simov and Alexander Popov took place in Odessa. In 1896, Simov met K.S. Stanislavsky, who invited him to design the play “The Sunken Bell” by G. Hauptmann at the Society of Art and Literature. The artist was at the origins of the creation of the Moscow Art Theater (1898). During the first decade of the history of this theater, he was actually its only artist. In total, during his work at the Moscow Art Theater, Viktor Simov designed 51 productions. The artist’s works are stored in the State Central Museum of Art, other museums and private collections.