[1] Artsybushev served as the chief editor of the satirical magazine Zritel (Spectator)[2] and as an organizer of the Theater of Miniatures in Moscow.

Yury was born into the family of Konstantin Artsybushev (1849-1901), a nobleman by birth, a railway engineer, and his wife Maria Lakhtina (1859-1919).

Since 1916, when new signs of social revival appeared, Artsybushev started to make series of sketches of participants of different meetings, assemblies and trials.

The first series of sketches were made at the trials on abuses in the army (summer 1916), over the participants in the food riots (autumn 1916), over the agents of the Moscow Security Office (April 1917).

On December 24, 1919, Artsybushev left Odessa for Serbia and soon moved from Belgrade to Paris.