A symbol of Russian poetry in one image An iconic portrait of a famous Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (who was Amadeo Modiglani's lover in one time frame) by Georges Annenkov is announced a painting of the month on www.russianartsalon.com
at Sorbonne University. In 1913, Annenkov participated with his two paintings in the show at 'Salon des Independents', then he traveled and worked in France and Switzerland. Over the course of his artistic development, Annenkov absorbed a range of influences, from Russian Folk-style Lubok and Cubism of Pablo Picasso to Nabism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, and other Avant-garde movements, and created his own style called New Synthetism. Annenkov
In 1914, when the First World War broke, he was back in St. Petersburg, Russia. There Annenkov worked for art magazines, and took part in several art shows. He made stage design for several stage productions at the Theatre of Komissarzkhevskoy, and also worked with the director Nikolai Yevreinov and his Theatre Krivoe Zerkalo (aka.. The Curved Mirror) in St. Petersburg. By 1917 Annenkov joined the Mir Iskusstva group of artists, where he met such leaders of Russian art as Alexandre Benois, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and Yevgeni Lansere among others. During 1910s - 1920s, Annenkov was active as a book illustrator for such writers and poets as Alexander Blok, Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Kuzmin, and Yevgeni Zamyatin among others. In 1918 Annenkov created his well known illustrations for "The Twelve" by Aleksandr Blok. After the Communist Revolution of 1917, Annenkov followed his democratic and liberal instincts and became associated with non-Bolshevik leaders, such as Leon Trotsky, Maxim Gorky, and Anatoli Lunacharsky.
In 1918 - 1921, Annenkov made several large-scale, experimental and most avant-garde street decorations for mass shows and outdoor performances in St. Petersburg, Russia. On May 1, 1920, he staged an outdoor mystery show titled 'Liberated Labour Anthem' for the May Day Parade. That show started a tradition of grand-scale Soviet parades and street shows, for which Annenkov made the original designs, working with the group of such artists as Dobuzhinsky, Maslovsky, Kugel, and Shchuko. In the fall of 1920, Annenkov designed and directed a massive show 'Revolutionary Takeower of the Winter Palace' at the Palace Square in St. Petersburg. At that time, Annenkov invested his experimental ideas in such innovative stage productions as 'Gaz' by G.Keiser (1920) and 'The Mutiny of the Machines' by A. Tolstoy (1924) at Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) in St. Petersburg. Annenkov's design for 'The Mutiny of the Machines' was involving several consecutive stage sets with large-scale moving mechanisms symbolizing the domination of industrial technology over human life.
Annenkov was among organizers of 'Segodnya' publishing house in St. Petersburg. In 1922, he published a book of his original portraits of eighty leading cultural and political figures of Russia of that time, such as Anna Akhmatova, Fedor Sologub, Yevgeni Zamyatin, Maxim Gorky, Boris Pasternak, and Leon Trotsky, V.I. Lenin, and Aleksandr Kerensky among many others. Annenkov's portraits show his mastery of blending several styles for better representation of complex, multi-faceted personalities of his famous sitters. In 1923 Annenkov collaborated with Kornei Chukovsky on the popular children books series, of which "Moidodyr" with illustrations by Yuri Annenkov had over 30 re-printings, and became one of the best known Russian books for
