Upon completing his basic education at the local gymnasium, he enrolled at the University of Kharkiv where, at the urging of his parents, he graduated from the physics and mathematics department in 1893.
During those years, he also worked part-time for the "Казённая палата" (Treasury Chamber), an agency of the Ministry of Finance.
He was at the Académie Julian for three years; studying with Jules Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury and held his first small exhibition in 1896.
[2] After 1917, he helped design Revolutionary events and festivities, organized art shows, and illustrated children's books.
Over the last decade of his life, he was a regular exhibitor at the numerous state-sponsored art events that came and went as the various factions in the government sorted themselves out.