Бенуа, Александр Николаевич

Art critic, graphic artist, designer, painter

Born Sint-Petersburg 3 May 1870

Died Paris 9 November 1960

Alexandre Benois, youngest son of the academician and architect Nikolai Benois, grew up in a very cultured family of French and Italian extraction. He attended the Karl Mai Gymnasium in St. Petersburg where he befriended his class mates Nouvel, Filosofov and Somov. Later this group of friends was joined by Diaghilev, Bakst, Nurok and Lanceray, the core of the Mir Iskusstva [World of Art] movement. After an initial study at the Academy of art, he studied Law between 1890 and 1894. In the last years of the century he traveled throughout Europe. After the revolution he became the keeper of the French and English painting of the Hermitage Museum. In 1926 he emigrated to Paris where he worked mainly as a theatrical designer and where he died.

1904

1911

1916

1918

1921

1922 - 23

1926 - 27

1928

1936

1946 - 47

1950

1955

1957

1959-60

1964 - 65

1968

1972

1980

1986

1990

1993

1994