Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (Russian: Иван Яковлевич Билибин, IPA: [ɪˈvan ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪdʑ bʲɪˈlʲibʲɪn]; 16 August [O.S.

Ivan Bilibin gained popularity with his illustrations of Russian folk tales and Slavic folklore.

He was born to Yakov Ivanovich Bilibin, assistant chief physician at the Saint Petersburg Naval Hospital, and Vavara Alexandrova Bilibina (née Bubnova).

[citation needed] In the period 1902 to 1904,[citation needed] working under the Russian Museum (Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III) Bilibin traveled to the Vologda, Olonetsk, and Arkhangelsk Governorates, performing ethnographic research and studying examples of Russian wooden architecture.

[2] During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Bilibin drew revolutionary cartoons, especially for the magazine Zhupel (Жупелъ), which in 1906 was banned because of his illustration depicting the emperor as a donkey.

In 1910, Bilibin left the Union of Russian Artists, as a result of differences in approach to their creative work.

[2] In 1911, Bilibin was hired by the State Paper Manufacturing Section to illustrate ball programs, exhibition and book posters, postcards for the Red Cross's Society of St. Eugenia, and envelopes and stationery with the Russian Bogatyrs.

[2] On 13 March 1920, fleeing the Russian Civil War, Bilibin arrived in Alexandria where he spent quarantine, before moving to the Tell El Kebir refugee camp.

[2] On 7 February 1942, Bilibin died during the Siege of Leningrad,[2] starving within the city when he refused to leave,[6] and was buried in a collective grave.

On 28 April 1902, Bilibin married his former student and fellow pupil at the Tenisheva studio, Irish-Russian painter and illustrator of children's stories Maria Chambers.

The couple entered an agreement, witnessed by their friend musician Stepan Stepanovich Mitusov, that if Bilibin did not drink for a year, then O'Connell would stay with him.