“Alexander Benois de Stetto. Back in Russia ”
ARTinvestment.RU   04 августа 2009

In the cultural-educational center “House” Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve is open exhibition “Alexander Benois de Stetto. Back in Russia ”

In the cultural-educational center «House» Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve is open exhibition «Alexander Benois de Stetto. Back in Russia ».

In the history of Russian art family Benoit - Lanceray - Serebryakova occupies a special place. Her representatives have made a significant contribution to the visual, musical and performing arts, architecture. Most of them have gained recognition at home and abroad. Until now, this talented family name provides an opportunity to make original discoveries.

These are, of course, are the creative legacy of one of the brightest representatives of this type - Alexander Siegfried Buharda Levy, Benoit de Stetto (1896-1979). A native of St. Petersburg, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, left Russia in 1922, he lived a long and meaningful life: «entered the twentieth century at the age of four years and together with the new century has experienced the most important events in the history of art». Fate did not complain about it. He fought for the right to be free man, for you're doing something right, and succeeded in this, but paid a high price - a long neglect in the home.

Alexander Benois de Stetto not leave behind memoirs, preserved a few letters in which the facts of the biography is not easy to recover, but he was such a greedy and perceived immediacy of the world, with such generosity spills his impressions on canvas, that his art can tell a lot about him. Portraits, landscapes, still lifes, drawings animalisticheskie able to talk about love, admiration, worship of beauty, sad thoughts. Alexander Benois de Stetto never returned to Russia, but to tell you about an artist whose soul has always kept the memory of the homeland, returned to his work and family relics.

The exhibition, organized by St. Petersburg Foundation for Promotion of Culture and Art and Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve, is part of a larger exhibition project for the return of Russian art in the context of a bright name, embodies the mutual influence and close ties of Russia and European art. The exhibition presents over 80 paintings and graphic works by Alexander Benois de Stetto in the genres of landscape, portraiture, still life, sketches animalisticheskih.

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«... Alexandre Benois de Stetto, most are not yet known in Russia, is telling a lot of art lovers last name. After gaining his first work of Benoit de Stetto in 1990, until March 2005 the first author of these lines discerned his riddle. The artist has left Russia after the 1917-th, to wander through Europe and finally in 1929 settled in Geneva, where he lived until his death. Despite searches, no trace of the artist Benoit de Stetto in Russia to find it was not possible. From an article in the Journal de Genève (1930) was able to find out what Benoit de Stetto was born in a Swiss family in St. Petersburg, where later he studied at the Academy of Painting. His father was an architect. In the 1966-meters in this article is devoted to honoring the artist on the occasion of the 70 th anniversary, it was reported that "... Alexander Benois de Stetto comes from a large and well-known artistic family, which gave rise to the capital of the empire of artists, musicians, sculptors and architects in particular, who have worked personally the king of the XVIII century, while preserving its Swiss citizenship (emphasis added. - AT )".

first time in the article mentioned that the artist was godfather Leonty Benoit, who was subsequently found to have been, and his uncle. In the memoir A. Benoit any indication that their high family were, and Benoit de Stetto, found it was not possible. But in the 1996-meters at the Sotheby's auction in London, was put up for sale a portrait of Alexander Benois de Stetto, written in 1916, Zinaida Serebryakova . The front side of the left-hand corner was the inscription "Alexander Benois de Stetto, Zinaida Serebryakova painted in Russia in Neskuchnyi near Kharkov in 1916." So, all the same in Russia was such an artist - Benoit de Stetto and was related to the Benoit family. What was that for the relationship, it just almost a decade later, when able to find the nephew of Alexander Benois de Stetto, G. Benoit. He wrote the history of the Swiss branch of the family, which was first described as the father of the artist - Siegfried Levi Jew. Annalist family writes: "For my part, I noticed that the silence of our father against his father, Siegfried Levi was the same total as for his mother Claire (Clara-Alice Benoit. - AT ). We practically knew nothing. " Silent life, and Alexander Benois de Stetto, married in Paris in 1924 to a Danish Jew, with whom he lived all his life. During the difficult war years, her Guarneri violin was sold, and her musical career at the end. But she began to paint. Two small still life Kama Benois de Stetto in meeting the author, talking about her exceptional abilities.

Obviously, this marriage in the family of Benoit did not cause any great enthusiasm, they - and complete silence about this in the memoirs of A. Benoit. As for Siegfried Levi, He is in his youth in Switzerland, has received Swiss citizenship, which allowed his sons, Alexander and Eugene then also get Swiss nationality, while taking the name of the mother - Benoit. And that different from its dual-namesake, A. Benoit, Alexander himself added to the name - on the Italian manner - the particle "de". It was the second birth of the artist Alexander Benois de Stetto.

Studying Swiss Line Benoit family, the author discovered a portrait of his brother Alexander - Eugene, as well as an indication that he was kept in the Art Museum in Almaty, Kazakhstan (as mentioned serebryakovsky portrait of Alexander) . The last link in the search for the mother has Zinaida Serebryakova that of Neskuchnyi in a letter to her husband 8 June, 1916 wrote: "Children are funny and good health - from farm (meaning the family of Levi. - AT ) see each often. Zinok Mashutku paints, as well as the Levy brothers, who are very nice, people are brought up, and the children they are loved. " A month later, July 10, 1916-nd, EN Lanceray write to her husband: "... but in general it draws (daughter Zina. - AT ) a lot, one session after another ... Zhenyu, or shura Levy .... " Family secrets, Alexander Benois de Stetto kept until his death.

Since the first acquisition of works by Benois de Stetto the 1990 meeting of the author's addition of four works by the artist and two works of his wife Kama. Many of their works held in other private collections in Switzerland. But much more of their number is now in Russia, where was born and studied - in the spirit of family tradition - to the architectural department of the Imperial Academy of Arts Russian-Swiss painter Zigfridovich Alexander Levy, Benoit de Stetto ».

Tikhonov AA Russian artists in Switzerland:
from Matveyeva to Benoit de Stetto//Russian art. 2005. Number 3.

exhibition until August 23, 2009.

material produced Catherine Onuchin, AI

Sources: museum.vladimir.ru , museum.ru , rusiskusstvo.ru , artinvestment.ru