Maxim Gorki. (a.k.a. Maxime Gorki de face)

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen

A portrait of Russian writer, playwright, and political thinker Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, popularly known as Maxim Gorky (also spelled Gorki). A five-time Nobel Prize nominee, Gorky was an early Marxist and anti-Tsarist, who would later also be exiled from Russia following an embittered fallout with former friend Vladimir Lenin. His oft-changing opinions on governmental laws and punishments kept his reputation in a constanct state of limbo. His written work has only recently begun to be republished with renewed interest.

It's likely that Thoephile Steinlen met Gorky through activities connected to their sympathetic political outlooks as well as their participation in similar art circles. Carl Lebeau was a print publisher based in Heidelberg, Germany who commissioned Steinlen to create this image.

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1859. Following studies at the University of Lausanne he took a design internship at a textile mill in Mulhouse, France. Soon thereafter, on the advice of painter Francois Bocion, he relocated with his wife Emilie to Monmartre, Paris, where he quickly became ensconced in the burgeoning Belle Epoque artists' scene.

Beginning in the early 1890s he exhibited at the Salon des Independants and gained a favorable reputation as a painter, focusing on rural landscapes, nudes, and still lifes, as well as the daily lives of Monmartre's working class and poorer residents. In addition to his work in oil painting and fine prints, Steinlen was a popular graphic artist and poster designer, creating some of the most recognized Art Nouveau poster ads of the times, among them posters for 'Le Chat Noir' and 'Compagnie Francaise des Chocolate.' A prolific illustrator, he also contributed hundreds of works to the publications 'Le Rire', 'Gil Blas', 'L'Assiette as Beurre', and 'Les Humouristes', which he co-founded. During World War I, Steinlen created a series of works that dealt with the lives of soldiers, creating darker, moodier lithographic pieces that aimed to illustrate the mood of Paris and Europe as the war played out.

Steinlen died in Paris in 1923.