Nikita Lobanov

Biography

Childhood and youth

A relative of the diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, Alexey Borisovich Lobanov-Rostovsky. Son of Dmitry Ivanovich Lobanov-Rostovsky (1907-1948) and Irina Vasilyevna (1911-1957), daughter of V. V. Wyrubov. His uncle (his mother's brother) is Nikolai Vasilyevich Vyrubov (1915-2009), a member of the French Resistance and a Knight of the Legion of Honor and Ordre de le Liberastion.

His grandfather, Prince Ivan Nikolaevich (1866 – October 13, 1947), left Russia with his sons in 1919. Nikita was born in Bulgaria, where the entire family settled.

In 1946, after Soviet troops entered Bulgaria, he and his parents unsuccessfully attempted to cross the Greek border: the family was arrested on Greek territory. The 11-year-old boy fell ill from malnutrition and was transferred to a criminal prison, the Sofia Central Prison, where conditions were better. He spent a year in prison; his mother and father was released six months later. However, in 1948, Dmitry Lobanov-Rostovsky was kidnapped by Bulgarian state security agencies and, as his son only discovered in 1992, was executed in a death camp near the city of Pazardzhik.(Camp "C").

On doctor's advice, to avoid rickets, Nikita took up swimming, and in 1951 he became Bulgarian youth champion in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke. In September 1953, Nikita and his emigrated to Paris. He received assistance from his uncle, Nikolai Vasilyevich Vyrubov, one of de Gaulle's closest Russian friends, who worked at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and from the future lbest selling novelist and close friend of de Gaul Romain Gary (Deputy Ambassador of France to Bulgaria).

In 1956, Irina died, and while his mother was still alive, in 1954 Nikita, having received a scholarship from a refugee aid organization, moved to England to prepare for admission to Oxford University's Geology Department. It was then that he first saw the art he would dedicate his life to collecting, attending an exhibition in London dedicated to Sergei Diaghilev's "Seasons of the Russian Ballet." He was taken there by his godmother, Ekaterina Ridley, granddaughter of Count Benckendorff, the last ambassador of the Russian Tsar to England.

Career

He graduated from Oxford University in 1958. He moved to the United States to continue his education, enrolling in the Department of Geology at Columbia University in New York City, specializing in economic geology (ore deposit geology). He received his master's degree in 1960.He worked at the private bank Lobe Roads, explored oil in Patagonia (Argentina), and studied Spanish. Later, he prospected for mercury in Tunisia and Alaska, nickel in Venezuela, iron (itibarite) in Liberia, and worked in diamond mines in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa.

Returning to New York, he worked at Chemical Bank (now Morgan Chase Bank) and entered the evening department of New York University to study banking.

In 1962, he earned a master's degree in banking accounting, and at the same time married Nina Georges-Picot, the daughter of the French ambassador to the UN and the first deputy secretary-general of the UN.

From 1961 to 1967, he served the international of Chemical Bank.

From 1967 to 1970, he was assistant vice president of Bache & Co, also in New York.

From 1970 to 1979, he was vice president of Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco, also heading its division Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

From 1979 to 1983, he served as senior vice president of International Resources and Finance Bank in London.

After 1974, he visited the USSR numerous times on business for the banks where he worked, and met with the country's top government officials.

From 1987 to 1997, he was an advisor to the South African diamond monopoly De Beers.

He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.

Collecting and Philanthropy

Together with his first wife, Nina, he began collecting works of theater costumes and set designs by Russian artists from the first half of the 20th century. He first visited the USSR in 1970, together with his wife, at the invitation of the Central State Archive of Literature and Art (TsGALI), where he donated Sergei Sudeikin's archive. With TsGALI's assistance, he was introduced to leading collectors in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kyiv.

He is an advisor to Christie's auction house, and later to Sotheby's, which evaluated valued his collection every two to three years. He was a board member of the Theatre Museum Association in London and a life member of the Union of Benefactors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In 1967, he published a directory of theater designers, "Who's Who and Where?" (an encyclopedia of Russian stage artists).

He is a life member of the Union of Benefactors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a member of the Governing Council of the Cyril and Methodius Foundation in Sofia, a member of the board of the Institute of Contemporary Russian Culture in Los Angeles (California), a member of the Society of Collectors in Moscow and London, an academician of the International Information Academy at the UN in Geneva.

Lobanov-Rostovsky has endowed the Lobanov-Rostovsky Professorship in Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, his alma mater, along with the annual Lobanov-Rostovsky Lecture in Planetary Geology. Scientists who have contributed extensively to the study of the Universe through the lenses of geology have been speakers, including the prominent Bernard Wood, speaker of the 2022 Lecture. He has endowed a position for a lecturer in organic chemistry at Christ Church in the name of his tutor Dr. P .Kent

Collection (N. & N. Lobanov-Rostovsky collection)

"The beginning of my collection was Sergei Sudeikin's costume sketches for the ballet "Petrushka," says Nikita Dmitrievich. "I bought them for $25 each." Lobanov-Rostovsky recalls the early stages of his collecting romantically: "I had no money. But then I developed a detective hobby. In the first years of my collecting, I worked during the day, had dinner, and from eight in the evening until eleven at night I did nothing but research russian theatrical art. At first, I found out which Russian artists lived where and at what address. I spent a lot of time with émigré artists. It was a world of poor people. Back then, no one needed their art. Many had already died. And widows or children didn't know what to do with their artistic inheritance. It disappeared gradually. There's a lot of Muslim in me. I don't drink vodka. I drink tea. And long conversations over tea in the homes of Benois, Dobuzhinsky, and Larionov bore fruit. In a foreign land, to talk about your past, to reminisce, to pour out your soul—is there any greater joy? In those years, seeing my interest and poverty, they would simply give me things, like Boris Pasternak's sisters, or sell me stage designs, costume sketches, and sketches for a modest price. We lived on two salaries: mine and my wife Nina's. We used one to buy paintings. That's how our collection was assembled in Europe and North and South America. I understood perfectly well then that I was fulfilling a mission: saving Russian art, which would have simply sunk into oblivion."

Family

His first wife (1962–2000) was Nina Georges-Picot (Nina Vilgelmovna Lobanova-Rostovskaya). Nina was the daughter of the French ambassador to the UN, then UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic Affairs and Chairman of the UN Security Council, who had previously (in 1930) served as Second Secretary at the French Embassy in Moscow. Nina is the author of the book "Soviet Porcelain 1917–1927" (London, 1990).

His second wife, June Marsham-Townsend, is English and a descendant of Lord Sidney (since 2001)

No children.

Awards and titles

The Highest Order of the Republic of Crimea "For Loyalty to Duty"(10.02.2026)

Honorary award of the International Council of Russian Compatriots and the Government of Moscow "Compatriot of the Year" (2003) - for contribution to Russian culture and art

Medal "In Memory of the 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg" (October 20, 2004)

Order of Friendship - for significant contribution to the preservation of Russian art, strengthening and developing Russian-British relations in the field of culture (December 29, 2005)

Certificate of Honor of the Government Commission for Compatriots Abroad (2008)

Gratitude from the Mayor of Moscow (October 19, 2007) — for significant contribution to developing ties with the historical homeland and promoting Russian cultural and spiritual values.

Bulgarian Golden Muse Award — for contribution to Russian-Bulgarian cultural ties (2009)

Citizenship of the Russian Federation — for special services to the Fatherland (November 5, 2010)

Compatriot of the Year (2012)

Russian Ludwig Nobel Prize (2013)

Honorary Doctorate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (2003)

Full Member of the Petrovskaya Academy of Sciences and Arts (2008)

Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Arts (2016)

Literature

John E. Bowlt. N. D. Lobanov-Rostovsky. Katalog-rezone Khudozhniki Russkogo Teatra / Catalogue-raisonné: Painters of Russian Theatre, 1880–1930. Collection of Nikita and Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky (In Russian, 156 colour and 1026 b/w illustrations.) 1994. 528 pp. ISBN 5-210-00233-0, ISBN 978-5-210-00233-4

N.D.Lobanov-Rostovsky's books:

Notes of a Collector. Moscow, RAS, 2003

Era. Fate. Collection. Moscow, Russian Path, 2010

Rurikovich in Exile. Moscow, author's edition, 2015

Rurikovich in the 21st Century. Moscow, author's edition, 2017

Rurikovich at the Turn of the Centuries M., Minuvshee, 2020

The Life and Times of the Sinful Prince Nikita. Sofia, Lito Balkan, 2022

Rurikovich: Strips of the Past. M., YASK Publishing House, 2023

Co-authored with:

J. Bowlt (John Bowlt): Artists of the Russian Theatre. Collection of Nina and Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky. Vol. 1. Moscow, Iskusstvo, 1990

J. Bowlt (John Bowlt): Artists of the Russian Theatre. Collection of Nina and Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky. Catalogue-Répertoire. Vol. 2. M, Iskusstvo, 1994

Andrey Marudenko: Dialogues. Moscow, Aurora Nobilis, 2020

Ekaterina Fedorova: Hero of the French Liberation, Russian nobleman N. V. Vyrubov, Moscow, YASK Publishing House, 2021