A poet, translator, essayist, director.He was born on 19 June (1 July) 1896 in Saint-Petersburg in a family of lawyer. Since childhood he was interested in painting, later on he illustrated some of his books.

In 1904 the family moved to Moscow, where in 1914 Antokolskiy graduated from a classical school, then attended lectures at Shanyavskiy University, entered the Faculty of Law of the Moscow University (but didn’t finished his studies).Since his youth he was carried away by theatre, played in amateur performances, wrote plays.

Since 1915 he worked at the Vakhtangov Drama Studio. In the early 1930s  he became a director of  the Vakhtangov Theatre.At the same time he began to write poetry.

Pavel Antokolskiy died on 9 October 1978.