Alexander Serebryakov is a Russian artist who created miniature watercolors with an amazing degree of detail. Its landscapes attract attention with curious features of European cities. "Portraits of Interiors" impress with the subtlety of the drawing and make you want to be inside the luxury apartments. The artist himself found a home in exile and is practically unknown at home.
Alexander Serebryakov is a Russian graphic artist and painter, a representative of the Serebryakov-Benois creative dynasty. The master earned recognition among European and American connoisseurs, while his name remained unknown for many years in his homeland. Only in 2019 was the first monographic exhibition of Alexander Serebryakov opened in Moscow. The life and work of the forgotten artist deserve the attention of compatriots.
Family and early years
Alexander Borisovich was born in 1907 and belonged to a family with rich cultural traditions. Mom is the famous portraitist Z. E. Serebryakova. Father - engineer B. A. Serebryakov. Grandfather Eugene Lansere is a sculptor, uncle Alexander Benois is an artist, historian and theorist of painting, founder of the World of Art society.
All children of Zinaida and Boris Serebryakov inherited artistic talent. Alexander took up painting and graphics. His brother Eugene became an architect, participated in the restoration of the palaces of Peterhof after the Great Patriotic War. Sisters Ekaterina and Tatiana grew up as artists.
Alexander Serebryakov spent his childhood in St. Petersburg and the family estate near Kharkov. In 1917 Boris Anatolyevich died of typhus, and Zinaida Evgenievna never married again. In 1925, Alexander with his mother and sister Catherine left Russia forever. The family settled in France.
Life and work in emigration
Alexander Serebryakov is a self-taught artist. He received no formal art education and developed skills through practice by painting and watching his mother and uncle work. Since 1926, Serebryakov helped Alexander Benois decorate the performances of Ida Rubinstein, and painted the scenery for Boris Kokhno's ballets. In the same year, Alexander and Ekaterina Serebryakov created a series of geographical maps for the Paris Museum of Decorative Arts.
In 1928 Serebryakov showed his works for the first time in the Lesnik's gallery. In the 1930s, the artist became famous on a European scale: his paintings were exhibited in the halls of France, Belgium, and the Czech Republic. Serebryakov painted watercolor landscapes, illustrated poetry collections and children's books, for example, the album "Our France". The artist collaborated with the press: he developed newspaper fonts, drew fashion pictures for women's magazines.
Serebryakov - "portraitist of interiors"
In 1941, the fateful acquaintance of the artist with the aristocrat Charles de Beisteguy took place. A connoisseur of luxury and an esthete, Beistegi was fond of buying and decorating old mansions. Once he showed sketches of apartments to Alexander Serebryakov. From that moment on, the artist became Beistegi's permanent decorator and a true chronicler of his renovations. For 30 years, Alexander Borisovich sketched decor ideas and finished interiors for the Grousse castle and other houses that belonged to Beistegi. In 1951 Serebryakov sketched the decoration for the costume Bala de Beisteguy. The large-scale social party became an epoch-making event and brought together the entire color of European bohemia - from Salvador Dali to Christian Dior.
Thanks to Beistegi, the works of Alexander Serebryakov became fashionable among aristocrats and millionaires. In the 1950-60s, the artist designed mansions and apartments for the Rothschild family, the Latin American magnate Arthur Lopez, and Baron Alexis de Rede. The artist made talented antique styling, mixing antiques with modern items. Trompe l'oeil panels depicting life-size bookcases and porcelain became an ingenious detail "from Serebryakov".
In the 1980s, a number of retrospective exhibitions of Alexander Serebryakov took place in France and the USA. The last lifetime exposition took place in 1994. The artist died in 1995 and was buried in the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris.
Best work
In his work, Alexander Serebryakov continued the traditions of the "World of Art". The artist was not interested in the avant-garde experiments of modernists and found inspiration in the aesthetics of the 18th century: complex subtle Rococo ornaments, an abundance of decorative details and a rich palette.
Alexander Serebryakov, whose best paintings were created in watercolor technique, painted landscapes of small format and "interior portraits". Serebryakov's work impresses with virtuoso skill of drawing and the highest degree of detail.
Alexander Borisovich was interested in the architectural heritage of Europe, traveled to the regions of France, Belgium, Italy. During the trips, a series of paintings were created depicting city streets, parks, squares, seen from unusual angles. Ancient monuments here side by side with remake houses, and monumental structures with funny little things in shop windows.
The interiors in Alexander Serebryakov's watercolors are recreated with documentary precision. An artist who is a connoisseur of historical styles of decor recreates in detail ornaments, stucco molding, openwork furniture elements. The color scheme of the paintings immerses the viewer in the atmosphere of the rooms: the coolness of the bathroom, the solemnity of the spacious living rooms and the cozy silence of the library.
Serebryakov and Russia
While living in France, Alexander Serebryakov contributed to the preservation of the national heritage among Russian emigrants. In 1945, he became one of the organizers of the Society for the Preservation of Russian Cultural Property in Paris, collecting materials about outstanding representatives of the Russian Diaspora. Serebryakov was one of the initiators of the restoration of the Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, developed sketches for the decoration and personally donated several paintings.
In Russia, the name of a painter, graphic artist and decorator was ignored for many years. Alexander Serebryakov, whose exhibition took place in Moscow for the first time in October 2019, was previously known only to specialists. Gallery "Our Artists" together with the Zinaida Serebryakova Foundation decided to change the state of affairs and introduced Russians to the work of our compatriot.
The exhibition of Alexander Serebryakov in "Our Artists" is a monographic exposition consisting of 50 works - landscapes and "interior portraits". The collection demonstrates the best examples of his work as a graphic artist, painter and decorator and allows one to appreciate the contribution of Serebryakov to the history of Russian culture.
