Polunin, Vladimir

Vladimir Jacolievitch Polunin (1880 – 11 March 1957) was a Russian artist, stage designer, and stage scene painter. Polunin was born in Moscow and studied art in Munich and Paris. In 1908 he emigrated to London to work as a designer for the Ballets russes. He was Diaghilev's chief scene-painter and worked with Picasso. Among Polunin's students was Karen Harris, daughter of the banker Sir Austin Harris. In London, he met one of the artists Sergei Diaghilev was trying hard to get work for, the sculptor and costume designer Elizabeth Violet Hart. She was an English introduced in the Parisian Bohemia by Henri-Pierre Roché and heroine of the novel Deux Anglaises et le continent. They were married the same year. At that time he was a teacher at the Slade School of Fine Art. He was the father of botanists Nicholas Polunin and Oleg Polunin, as well as physician Ivan Polunin. Polunin died on 11 March 1957 in the UK.