VOROBIEVA-STEBELSKAYA Maria Bronislavovna (née Vorobieva, pseudonym Marevna, Maria Marevna)

February 14, 1892 (Cheboksary) — May 4, 1984 (London)

Painter, graphic artist, sculptor

Maria Vorobieva was a daughter of the actress Maria Vorobieva. At the age of two she was adopted by a Polish nobleman Bronislav Stebelsky. She spent her childhood in Tiflis, studied at Tiflis school of fine arts. In 1910 she moved to Moscow and entered the Stroganov Art Academy. In 1912 she traveled to Rome, and then during half a year she lived on the island of Capri in the house of Maxim Gorky, who proposed young painter to sign her works with the pseudonym Maria Marevna. Later she moved to Paris, met I. G. Erenburg, M. A. Voloshin, many artists of Paris art circles: M. Chagall, G. Braque, A. Modigliani, J. Cocteau, F. Leger, H. Matisse, P. Picasso, Ch. Soutine and others. Since 1913 she exposed her works at the Salon of Independents. She visited M. V. Vasilieva’s Russian Academy and the Academy F. Colarossi, then since 1915 — the studio of Diego Rivera. In 1917 Rivera married Vorobieva-Stebelskaya. They lived together until Rivera’s departure to Mexico in 1921 (their daughter Marika, born in 1919, later became a famous Mexican actress). Under influence of Rivera, who was at the height of his fame, Marevna began to paint in cubism style. Her works in the middle of 1910s were decorative and emotional. Throughout her life Marevna kept in her creative work a predilection for cubistic forms and geometric lines. In her late works she combined elements of cubism and pointillism. Marevna considered pointillism to be close to Byzantine mosaics, frescoes and carpets, which she had seen in the Caucasus. Since 1921 Marevna collaborated with fashion houses, made painted shawls; she was engaged in hand-weaving. In 1936 Marevna moved to the south of France, in Cannes. Since 1948 she lived with her daughter in London, at her own house in Ealing.

Marevna wrote two books of memories: Life in Two Worlds (first edition — 1962, London; first edition in Russia — 1990, Moscow) and Life with the Painters of La Ruche (1974 — edition in New York; 2005 — in Moscow).

Lifetime personal exhibitions of Marevna were held in 1929, 1936, 1942, 1953 in Paris; 1970 — in Geneva; 1952, 1977 — in London. In 1968 she exposed her works at big neo-impressionism exhibition in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Marevna participated in group exhibitions in the Petit Palais Museum in Geneva and the Tate Gallery in Liverpool. In 1985 exhibition Marevna and Montparnasse was held in Bourdelle Museum in Paris. In 2004 the first personal retrospective exhibition of the painter was organized in Russia (the State Tretyakov Gallery).

The largest collection of Marevna’s works is in the Petit Palais Museum. Her works are also represented in the Montparnasse Museum in Paris and in private collections.