The artist, Anatole Alexandrovich Efimoff, was born November 21, 1897 to well-to-do parents in the Russian city of Ufa in the Urals. Anatole’s artistic and musical talents were recognized at a young age and in 1906 he entered he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Anatole spoke of his training under the guidance of Klav Lebedev as being intense and full time except for short holidays spent visiting his family. The Bolshevik uprising and the assassination of the Czar in 1918 brought an abrupt end to his privileged life in Russia. He fled to Harbin located in northeast China. However, eventually Anatole was forced to flee Harbin in 1930 in advance of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and relocated to Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China. The years in Tsingtao were very productive for the artist. He became fluent in Mardarin, opened the Lotus Art Studio where he showed his work and taught both foreign and local students, spent months at a time in Peking (now Beijing), and traveled frequently to show his work in Shanghai. In China, Efimoff had shown and sold his work regularly. Again Anatole was forced to leave and found his way to Los Angeles, California. Efimoff’s collection of “Temples and Palaces of Old Peking” was exhibited several times in Los Angeles in the early 1950’s. During his thirty-one years in Hollywood, Efimoff lived a modest life style and supported himself by teaching art. He passed away October 20, 1981.
This watercolor/gouache measures 5.5 x 5.0 inches, or 14 x 12.5 cms.
