Nikolai Konstantinovich Kalmakov was born in the picturesque Italian town of Nervi near Genoa. He spent his early years in Italy, his mother’s home country, and later moved to Saint Petersburg where he studied at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence up to 1895. Kalmakov never received complete academic training in painting. He taught himself by studying classic Italian paintings. Starting from the mid-1900s, Nikolai Kalmakov started actively participating in exhibitions with his symbolic paintings depicting stories from Eastern and classical myths.

For a few years, Kalmakov was a member of the Mir Iskusstva art movement, which had great scene painters in its midst such as Léon Bakst, Konstantin Korovin, and Alexander Golovin. Kalmakov’s style and skills were greatly influenced by the works of the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley.

Starting from 1908, Nikolai Kalmakov actively collaborated with the theaters of Saint Petersburg and Moscow as a scene painter. The artist created sketches of costumes and sets for the Starinny Theater, the New Drama Theater of Levant, and the Theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaya.

Nikolai Evreinov, the director of the Theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaya, invited Nikolai Kalmakov to work on the play “Salome” based on the eponymous tragedy by Oscar Wilde. “Salome” was banned for a long time in both England and Russia, so it was no wonder that the staging process was considered a risk.

The Theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaya tried to be circumspect by changing the characters’ names, removing direct references to religion, and renaming the play “Tsarevna.” Unfortunately, the intense visuals, unusual color choices, and innovative lighting decisions led to the ban of the entire production, and the play never saw the light of day.

There was, however, the open dress rehearsal, and some notes made by the attending journalists have been preserved. The critic Michail Weikone described the surreal feeling he had experienced,

The bright and grotesque visuals of the play were intended to challenge the boundaries of propriety and captivate the audience. Nikolai Kalmakov created a unique scene design that was in tune with both Oscar Wilde’s play and Nikolai Evreinov’s daring plan.