A major new biography of Serge Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, who revolutionised ballet, bringing together composers such as Stravinsky and Prokoviev, dancers and choreographers such as Nijinsky and Karsavina, Fokine and Balanchine and artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Bakst and Goncharova. An accomplished, flamboyant impresario of all the arts, he made a huge contribution to the arts of the twentieth century.Diaghilev (1872-1929) is a character on the scale of myth. Growing up in a minor noble family in remote Perm, as a very young man he became an influential writer on art and a publisher in St Petersburg. Moving soon onto a bigger stage, he became a central figure in the artistic worlds of Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Madrid during the golden age of modern art. He lived through bankruptcy, war, revolution and exile. Furthermore he lived openly as a homosexual and his liaisons, most famously with Nijinsky, and his turbulent friendships with among others Stravinsky, Coco Chanel, Misia Sert, Prokoviev and Jean Cocteau give his life an exceptionally dramatic quality. Scheijen's magnificent biography, based on extensive research in little known archives, especially in Russia, is revelatory and brings a complex and powerful personality with boundless creative energy fully to life.

The illustrations deliver a portrait gallery of many of Diaghilev's friends and offers a small taste of the art he inspired and commissioned.