He had been struggling with a heart condition, his stepdaughter Viola Kanevsky said. For decades in Soviet Russia Mr. Kabakov was, by day, a well-known children’s book illustrator, a state-sponsored artist with his own studio and art supplies (which he shared with his underground artist friends). He created some 150 children’s books before 1988, when he left the country for good. Yet he was also leading a double life as a conceptual artist. His albums had titles and scenarios that recalled the work of novelists like Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of “The Master and Margarita,” a dark 1967 satire of life under Stalin.

---

Persons: Ilya Kabakov, Viola Kanevsky, Kabakov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Margarita, ”, Stalin Organizations: Soviet Union Locations: Mattituck, Long, Soviet Russia, Soviet