Anrep, Boris

Anrep, Boris (1883–1969). Russian-born mosaicist and painter, active mainly in England. He studied law in his native St Petersburg, but developed a passion for Byzantine art and travelled widely to see it—in Russia, the Near East, and Italy. He studied at the Académie Julian, Paris, in 1908, and at the Edinburgh College of Art, 1910–11, and in 1912 he organized the Russian section of Roger Fry's second Post-Impressionist exhibition. After the First World War, in which he served in the Russian army, he settled in London, although he lived for a time in Paris after his wife left him for Fry in 1926. He came to specialize in mosaic pavements, the best-known examples being in the Tate Gallery, representing William Blake's Proverbs (1923), and the National Gallery—four floors on and around the main staircase, executed between 1926 and 1952. The subjects are The Awakening of the Muses, The Modern Virtues, The Labours of Life, and The Pleasures of Life; portraits of many well-known contemporaries are incorporated in them, for example the philosopher Bertrand Russell representing ‘Lucidity’ and the film actress Greta Garbo as Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy (see also SITWELL). They were paid for by Samuel Courtauld and other benefactors. Anrep wrote of his work: ‘It is more natural for us to look down than to look up to a decorated ceiling … As a matter of fact, the sight of pavement artists outside the National Gallery gave me the idea of decorating the vestibule. I approached the Director, Sir Charles Holmes. I had luck and the Director and Trustees agreed. I got in on the ground floor, while the other pavement artists, poor beggars, are still outside the Gallery.’ Among his private commissions were an entrance floor for Ethel Sands's home at 15 The Vale, Chelsea (1917), and a mosaic representing Various Moments in the Life of a Lady of Fashion (1922) for Sir William and Lady Jowitt at 35 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair (now in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham).