Bidspirit auction | Benois A.N.

Benois A.N. - Palermo. View of the Church of San Domenico.. Year:  1884 Technique:  Graphite pencil, watercolor, sugar water on cardboard. Size:  40x21. Descripton:  Signed, dated and titled lower right. Expertize:  Certificate by I.E. Grabar All-Russia Art Scientific Centre of Restoration. Benois Albert Nikolaevich (1852, St. Petersburg - 1936, Fonte-aux-Roses, near Paris). Master of watercolor painting. From 1871 to 1877 studied at the Academy of Arts in the class of architecture, while simultaneously studying watercolors under the guidance of L.O. Premazzi. He worked in the landscape genre and continued the traditions of romanticism. From 1885 to 1894 taught at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, was its Full Member. Was close to the imperial court. He became the first curator of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg (1895), and also served since (1897) as an artistic inspector of the Department of Trade and Manufacture, and Head of the Museum of Applied Arts of the Commissariat of Trade and Industry of Petrograd. Since 1887, he was a founding member and head of the Society of Russian Watercolor Painters. He actively participated in the museum life of the first post-revolutionary years. Traveled extensively throughout Western Europe, North Africa, the Caucasus, Crimea, Volga region, Central Asia and the Far East. In 1924 he emigrated to France and settled in Paris. The artist’s works are in the State Russian Museum.