07/23/09On July, 23, 2009 the “Alexander Benoits di Stetto. The return to Russia” Exhibition will be opened at the Palaty Museum Complex in Vladimir
 The Benoits – Lansere – Serebryakov’s family occupies special position in the history of domestic art. Its representatives made a serious contribution to the depictive, musical and theatrical art and architecture. Many of them obtained acknowledgement both at home and abroad. This talented family gives the possibility to make authentic discoveries until now.
Creative heritage of one of the brightest representatives of this family – Alexander Sigfried Bukhard Levi-Benoits di Stetto (1896–1979) – can be attributed as one of these discoveries. Born in Saint Petersburg and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Alexander Benoits left Russia in 1922 and lived a long and meaningful life. “He entered the twentieth century at the age of four and together with the new century survived outstanding events in the history of art”. His fate was not easy. He fought for the right to be a free person, for the right to do what he loved and succeeded in this, although he paid a high price for this – a prolonged oblivion in the native country.
Alexander Benoit di Stetto did not leave memoirs. There are only several letters left by him. It is not easy to restore the facts of his biography basing on them. He lived with such greediness for life and received the surrounding world so directly, he splashed out his impressions on the canvases with such generosity, that his creative works can tell us much about him. Portraits, landscapes, still life pieces, animalistic sculptural figures are capable of telling about his love, enthusiasm and admiration in front of the beauty, as well as about his sad reflections. Alexander Benoit did not return to Russia, but in order to describe the artist, whose soul had always kept the memory about his native land, his works and family relics returned.
Organized by the St. Petersburg Public Fund for Assistance to the Development of Culture and Arts together with the Vladimir and Suzdal Museum, the exhibition is a part of a large exhibition project the aim of which is the return of Benoit’s bright name to the context of Russian art. This name personifies reciprocal effects and close connections of Russian and European artistic cultures. More than 80 pictures and graphic works created in different genres by Alexander Benoits di Stetto are on the display.
| 
