Dimitri Bouchène was a Russian painter and decorator naturalized French. He was born in 1893 in Saint-Tropez while his mother was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. Until 1912, Bouchène took evening classes in painting while studying at the Second Gymnasium of St. Petersburg. He arrived in Paris in 1912 and attended Maurice Denis' studio at the Ranson Academy where he met Henri Matisse.

Back in St. Petersburg in 1913, Dimitri Bouchène studied history and philology before taking drawing classes two years later at the Imperial Society of Fine Arts. He was part of the Mir Iskousstva movement founded in 1898, which advocated a renewal of Russian art, and was inspired by Art Nouveau and Symbolism, relying on new art forms including ...