Alexandre Serebriakoff

Alexandre Borissovitch Serebriakoff is a Russian painter, watercolorist and decorator. He is known above all for his sensational “portraits” of Parisian interiors and elsewhere and his almost “photographic” landscapes. The young painter developed a personal technique: a precise pencil drawing, which he then covered with a layer of watercolor or gouache, accentuating with small touches the architectural elements, the people, the reflections, the quivering of the water surface and other details.

His mother, Zinaïda Serebriakova, was the first Russian woman to be recognized as an important painter. She is related to the Benois, a famous dynasty of Russian artists who emigrated from France in the 18th century. Alexandre is notably the nephew of Albert Benois. Alexandre Serebriakoff was seven years old when the October Revolution broke out. All family property was then confiscated, including the property of Neskoutchnoïe (in French, “Sans Souci”) where he was born. His father, Boris, was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks: he died in 1919 from typhus contracted during his incarceration. His mother took her children to Petrograd to try to survive, but, faced with difficulties, resolved to emigrate alone to Paris in 1924. Alexandre and his sister Catherine joined her later. It was there that Alexandre began his career as an interior designer. He stayed in Camaret-sur-Mer and Concarneau, with his family, for several summers in the following years. At first Alexandre had to work simultaneously in several directions—designing ballet productions (helping his uncle A. Benois and son N. Benois), illustrating fashion books and magazines, and developing fonts. In the early 1930s, under the direction of a great-uncle, the painter Schildknecht, he worked for the cinema, collaborating with directors Abel Gance, Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti.

He practiced the rare specialty of interior portraiture, leaving a meticulous testimony to the settings and celebrations of French high society. He often signed his works with his sister, Catherine Serebriakoff. He works for sponsors of Parisian or London high society, whose living spaces, mansions and castles he represents: among others, Mr. and Mrs. Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Baron Alexis_de_Redé, Charles de Beistegui, the Rothschilds, the Schneiders, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Tree in Ditchley. He was involved in the decoration and notably executed a series of drawings of the Oriental Ball given by Baron Alexis de Redé on December 5, 1969 at the Hôtel Lambert in Paris.