Marie Vassilieff was born in Smolensk in 1884 and first studied medicine in Saint Petersburg in 1902 before deciding to become an artist. She then attended courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in that city and came to Paris for the first time in 1905. Back in the French capital two years later she worked as a correspondent for several Russian newspapers and was at the same time the pupil of Henri Matisse.
She also met Max Jacob and it was after she sent an article on Matisse to the Golden Fleece review in Moscow that Schukin, the Russian collector, started to buy several works by this artist.
Marie founded the Russian Academy in 1908 and started to exhibit her works in Saint Petersburg. The following year she met the collector Paul Poiret and the art critic Andr Salmon and founded the Vassilieff Academy which became a meeting point for Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris, Matisse, Modigliani, Max Jabob and Erik Satie the musician.
Marie took part in all the yearly Salons of Paris from 1909 et made frequent trips to Scandinavia, Romania, Poland and Russia until 1914. During the First World War she enlisted as a nurse in the French Red Cross and showed her works in New York in 1915 but at the end of 1917 she was placed under house surveillance as a result of her Soviet citizenship.
Marie exhibited her works in London in 1920 while Paul Poiret showed her doll-portraits in Paris. From 1924 until 1937 she designed decor settings and costumes for many theatre plays, notably for the Swedish Ballets of Rolf de Mar. In 1925, she again exhibited her paintings in London and her furniture pieces at the historic Decorative Arts show.
After several exhibitions in London (1928 and 1930) and in Italy (1929), she settled in Southern France and only returned to Paris after the Second World War.
After becoming a funny old woman who seemed quite nostalgic of the Montparnasse heydays she took part in many other exhibitions but did not manage to regain her pre-war status and went on to retired in a retirement home for artists in Nogent-sur-Marne.
Marie worked under the influence of Delaunay and Lger in a primary cubist style also based on popular Russian art with themes relating to childhood and religion.
A retrospective exhibition of her works was held shortly after her death in 1957. Her most interesting paintings were her portraits of some dancers as well as those of Jean Cocteau, Picasso and Matisse.
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