BENOIS DE STETTO (Burhard Levy) Alexander Siegfried

October 1, 1896 (St. Petersburg) — 1979 (Geneva)

Painter, graphic artist, scene-designer, architect

Benois was born to family of the architect Gregory (Siegfried) Levy, who worked with L. N. Benois and was married to the youngest daughter of A. L. Benois — Clara-Alice.

Benois de Stetto received his primary art education at home. He attended the School of Drawing under the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (OPKh), where he studied under the guidance of A. A. Rylov. In 1918 he entered the faculty of architecture at Petrograd State Free Art Studios. In 1921 Benois immigrated to Switzerland and took the name of his mother as pseudonym. In 1925–1929 he lived in Paris, where he made his debut as a scene-designer. He was engaged in industrial design, developed car interior trim.

In 1929 Benois de Stetto settled in Geneva, but he continued to travel around Europe. He worked as portrait-painter, animal and landscape painter.

Benois de Stetto is one of the newly discovered names of Russian art, whose artwork still needs to be studied in detail. The major part of his works is in private collections in Switzerland and in Russia. In recent years a lot of retrospective exhibitions of the artist were held in St. Petersburg (2006), Moscow (2007), Kazan and Tyumen (2008).