The 20th century was a time of international upheaval, and many ruined lives and hopes. The time of powerful social cataclysms devoured many human fates, which makes it especially important to recall at least one of them.
Few among Russian connoisseurs of art know the name of Alexander Benois di Stetto, although he always thought of himself as a Russian artist, from the talented dynasty, and was so proud of his heritage that he eventually obtained permission to bear his maternal surname - Benois. His mother, Clara Alissa Benois, was born in 1867, the youngest, fifth child in the family of Alexander Leontievich Benois and Maria Friksen. They lived for a long time in Germany, hence their family nickname "the Hamburgers".
Alexander Nikolaevich Benois, the famous artist and critic, in his "Memoir" devoted several pages to some of his distant relatives. He was a nephew of Alexander "the Hamburger". Reminiscing about his uncle, he writes that his father felt toward his brother "a special tenderness". The brothers resembled each other not only in appearance, but also in their "spiritual makeup, artistic streak". Clara Alissa married Siegfried Levy, who knew the Benois family well and held in high esteem their values.
Grigory (Siegfried) Yakovlevich Levy (1850 - after 1923) was an architect - he studied in the Munich politechnical school, and from 1878 worked for the famous St. Petersburg architect Leontiy Nikolaevich Benois (1856-1928). Levy worked on commissions from Baron Vrangel in the Kiev region and designed buildings for the city of Gus-Khrustalny. He was the architect of the Sestroretsk health resort.
Alexander Benois di Stetto's large and talented family was very important for the development of his artistic outlook. He had an opportunity not only to observe Zinaida Serebryakova at work, but also to paint under her guidance. In June-July 1916 Alexander and Yevgeny Levy were staying with Serebryakova. The Serebryakovs liked the brothers; Yekaterina Nikolaevna Lansere - Zinaida Serebryakova's mother - in a letter from Neskuchnoe to her husband characterized her distant nephews as "very nice and well-mannered". From Yekaterina Nikolaevna we also learn that Zinaida Serebryakova painted the young men.
In 1918 Alexander Siegfriedovich's life in art took a new turn. He began to study architecture at the Petrograd State Free Art Workshop, as the Academy of Fine Arts came to be named in 1918. The reorganization of the academic school could lead to an "unavoidable chaos", something about which Leonty Benois had warned. An experienced teacher - he had been teaching at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts since 1893 - he decided to continue his educational activity. About 100 students enrolled at his workshop. He planned to combine general and model drawing classes with a large variety of architectural tasks. Alexander was enthusiastic about his new profession. Meanwhile, however, the Art Workshop was to be reorganized yet again, and most horribly, Leonty Benois was arrested, with his wife and children.
Under such circumstances, Alexander Levy decided to leave Russia forever. He was to be adrift and experience privations for many months to come. First he went to Finland, to the town of Terijoki (named after 1948 Zelenogorsk), whence he tried to relocate to Germany, and then to Switzerland. He received help in obtaining the necessary papers. On January 2 1922 the artist received a document attesting to his citizenship and requesting to "let pass freely and without hindrance a citizen of Switzerland Alexander Siegfried Borchardt Levy".
An invitation to Berlin, to the Deutsches Theater highlighted yet another aspect of his talent. In 1927 Alexander Benois di Stetto was awarded a Grand-Prix of the city of Berlin for designing the set for a production of Mozart's opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio." He worked with Max Reinhardt (1873-1943), and the famed director and actor found in Alexander Benois di Stetto a kindred spirit.
In the 1930s, already a famous portraitist, landscapist and monumentalist, he suddenly turned to the still-life genre in search of interesting colourist findings. ("Still-life with Red Flowers" (1950), "Golden Flowers" (1954), "Bouquet in Red" (1959)).
In the 1940s he created still-lifes with a balalaika, dolls, embroidered towels, and small ceramic horses ("Russian Still-life" (1943), "Small Red Horse" (1946)). Russian motifs are not typical for Benois di Stetto's work. During World War II the artist and his wife lived in neutral Switzerland, though, of course, Benois di Stetto had a distinctive viewpoint, which he expressed in the form peculiar to an artist. This series of "Russian" works includes "Still-life with a Portrait of Alexander I" (1944), distinguished for the refinement of its colour scheme.
Alexander Benois di Stetto was a talented portraitist, and turned to this genre in the 1920s. Initially, he painted mostly commissioned portraits of his neighbours, acquaintances and friends. In his notes the artist gives dozens of names, but does not provide descriptions. Thus his female sitters (the artist obviously preferred painting women) were often to remain "anonymous" ("Portrait of a Woman", "Portrait of a Lady in a Fur Coat").
The artist's wife Kama always remained his favourite sitter - and his portraits of her are marked with a special warmth ("Kama with a Cat" from the 1930s; "Portrait of Kama" from 1940; and "Kama at Rest" from 1941). The artist's numerous self-portraits are also of special interest.
Benois di Stetto created an excellent series of animalistic graphic artworks. He made sanguine and watercolour pictures of exotic animals. His drawings are superb, with impeccable silhouettes. The pictures combine succulent curves with fine lines resembling a feather touch. Their texture is ideal, evoking the best animal pictures of the old masters. The artist chose sanguine, believing that its lively line would help to convey the distinctive movements of an animal. Although there is no indication that Benois di Stetto was familiar with the work of his contemporaries - like the outstanding masters of sanguine drawing such as Alexander Yakovlev and Vasily Shukhaev - the obvious affinity of the artistic techniques is immediately evident. This is yet another proof of the fact that even dozens of years later, the artist remained faithful to the Russian school.
In the early 1950s he turned to new forms and motifs. An architect and an artist, he was becoming ever more interested in experimenting with volume and architectural forms. The avant-gardist dared to bring to life a new world of images, where the real and the imaginary blended to form a stunning symbiosis - his amazing "structures". For a show at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958, the artist made pictorial compositions, drawings and models - an artistic materialization of his dream about the City of the Future. The artist continued to develop his architectural fantasies and readily displayed his structural compositions at his solo exhibitions, which took place almost annually through the 1960s and 1970s.