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André Lanskoy

André Lanskoy(1902–1976)Son of Count Lanskoy, André Lanskoy is first destined for a military career, trained at the School of Pages and then at the School of Cadets of St.Petersburg, nothing then seems to direct him towards art. However, as early as adolescence, he manifests an early and deep attraction for visual manifestations, of color, as they appear in everyday life and popular Russian culture: decorated objects, toys, folk scenes, vivid and contrasting tonalities, which he observes, collects and memorizes without yet linking them to painting.The historical upheavals lead to it on the roads of exile. After a stay in Kiev, where he began to draw and color, he joined the White Army, then won Crimea and Constantinople. His arrival in Paris in the spring of 1921 marked a decisive turning point: he settled permanently there and immediately began painting, without any real academic training. His training is built by direct experience. He attended the Parisian galleries, worked at the Grande Chaumière and studied the masters at the Louvre: Velázquez, Le Greco, the primitive Italians, the Venetians.Two discoveries were decisive: the Portrait of the painter with his palette of the Douanier Rousseau, and the reading of the correspondence of Van Gogh, whose demand and fervor will lastingly mark his relationship to painting. He then painted after nature in Meudon and Clamart, multiplying sketches, watercolours and sketches. Until the late 1930s, Lanskoy remained on the side of the identifiable image. All