Biography

Was born in 1867, in Nizhny Novgorod. The future sculptor came from the Golovastikovs’ family of merchants, the bonded peasants from Bogorodskoe village, Nizhny Novgorod province. The family was wealthy once, but by the time of Séraphin's birth, they were practically paupers. His grandfather was an iconographer.

S. Golovastikov spent his childhood with his brother and mother in Nizhny Novgorod. Worked as a telegraph operator, participated in the amateur performances when he had leisure time. Later he joined the troupe of entrepreneur Belsky in the Nizhny Novgorod theatre in 1881-1891, performed under a pseudonym "Soudbinine". Together with D.A. Belsky left for Astrakhan in 1892. Performed in the troupes of provincial theatres. Was enrolled to the all-star cast of the Moscow Art theatre in May 1898, participated in the very first performance of the theatre ("Tsar Fyodor Ioanovich"). Was over parted in all core theatre performances ("Antigone", "The Twelfth Night", “The Burgess”, the plays of Ibsen, Hauptmann, etc.). In the play "the Lower Depths" alternately with K. S. Stanislavsky impersonated Satin.

In the early 1900s, Soudbinine became interested in sculpture, painting and photography. After visiting Paris in 1904, Soudbinine decided to devote himself to sculpture. The grant awarded by Savva Morozov enabled him to study sculpture under Leopold Sinaeff-Bernstein (until 1906) and Auguste Rodin (from 1906). After exhibiting a series of “Sleeping Monsters” at the Salon d’Automne (1906), he became a member of the Russian Artists’ Society (1906) and Salon d'Automne (1908).

The best-known sculptures of the artisan are "Sisyphus", "Cherubini at Rest", "Maxim Gorky", "Anna Pavlova", "Feodor Chaliapin", "Chaliapin as Romeo", "Scriabin" and "Leonid Sobinov". His exhibitions at the Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1903), Salon d'Automne (from 1906), Salon de la Nationale, Sergei Makovsky’s Salon (1909), Society of Russian Artists (1906–1916), Les Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev in Paris (1939), International exhibitions in Venice (1907), Munich (1909) and Rome (1911), the exhibitions of Russian art in Paris (1906, 1920, 1932), Venice (1920), London (1921), New York (1923), Belgrade (1930) and Prague (1935), as well as individual exhibitions in New York (1923), Paris (1934, 1939) and San Francisco (1935) won him vast popularity.

After the October Revolution Soudbinine left for Paris. He visited the United States (1922–1924), where he created ceramic vases and figurines of animals. His Paris studio was destroyed in an air raid during the World War II. Séraphin Soudbinine died in Paris in 1944.