Branded a decadent and an eccentric, over fifty years after his death Nikolas Kalmakoff remains a fascinating figure. A Russian aristocrat by birth, Kalmakoff was born in Nervi on the Italian Riviera, the son of a Russian General. The actor Alexander Mgebrov, who became acquainted with Kalmakoff in St Petersburg, recalled the artist's fascination with the devil and his insistence that he appeared to him late at night.

Given the consistent blurring of the sexes as a prevalent theme in his work, including Les femmes des Nadjis in which two beautiful women are surrounded by malevolent asexual heads, it is interesting to note the testimony of Kalmakoff's contemporaries of his membership of the Skopt...