Reading the Massie article assigned for today was particularly interesting for me because of the work I have been doing at my job in the college archives. A large number of books related to the World of Art movement were donated to the college by an alumni whose grandfather, Basil Troussoff, studied with Aleksander Benois, and worked as a painter and set designer in New York theater after he immigrated to the United States. The archives also hold a large amount of Basil’s personal papers, which I have been working on cataloging for the past year, culminating in an exhibit that will be on display very soon in the basement of the library.

Many of the books that were donated are exhibit catalogs from relatively unknown avant garde painters that whose work was displayed in Moscow in the from the late 19th century to the 1920’s. There are some by the more well-known painters as well, such as Aleksander Benois and Konstantin Somov. Many of the catalogs are also for exhibits of folk art from various regions of Russia. I originally thought this was a separate interest, but based on the focus of Russian roots and Russian identity in the principles of this movement, I now understand why Basil collected the books that he did. The archives also has an original copy of the publication World of Art, which showcased much of the work produced by members of the movement.

What I find especially interesting is that even though Basil was not participating in the same place as the center of the World of Art movement and even somewhat later, he still practiced the principals important to the movement, such as collaboration. Though he exhibited his own paintings, he focused on set design. Though he wasn’t working on such controversial pieces as the Rite of Spring, he helped to design sets in the studio of Joseph Urban, for performances by the Ziegfeld Follies and the Metropolitan Opera, important organizations in American theatre history.