Léopold Sturzwage, known as Survage, was born in Moscow in 1879.

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After an apprenticeship in the family piano factory, he joined the Moscow Academy of Fine Arts in 1901. He exhibited alongside the Russian avant-garde, including Larionov, Malevich and Bourliouk, among them Larionov, and discovered the Shchukin collection.

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He moved to Paris in 1908, where he exhibited for the first time starting in 1911. In the same year, he founded the Golden section, a group bringing together post-cubist artists and critics (Albert Gleizes, François Kupka, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, etc.) until 1925.

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His pictorial universe established an analogy between visual form and music, prefiguring Apollinaire's surreal and enthusiastic world. After a period of experimenting with the rules of Cézanne's construction and Cubism, he painted abstract watercolors - the Colourful rhythms - that he plans to have one after another in front of a camera in order to create a “pictorial symphony”, on par with music.

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His figurative and symbolic compositions mark the abolition of the rules of the traditional perspective. His work focuses on the themes of the city and its inhabitants and testifies to obvious links with Cubism. As early as 1922, he created sets and costumes for Les Ballets Russes by Serge de Diaghilev.