Constantin Kousnetzoff

Constantin Kousnetzoff, or Konstantin Pavlovich Kuznetsov (Russian: Константин Павлович Кузнецов); (10 August 1863, Zhyolnino - 30 December 1936, Paris) was a Russian painter who spent most of his career in France; known primarily for his landscapes, cityscapes and Symbolist watercolors.

Biography He was born to a wealthy merchant family who owned a trading business with headquarters in Astrakhan. He was educated at home, where he learned to play the piano and the flute. His interest in painting was inspired by the time he spent in the countryside, and his first works were in imitation of Ivan Shishkin.

Around 1892, he entered an art academy in Saratov. There, he met Victor Borisov-Musatov and, in 1895, accompanied him to Paris, where they both worked in the studios of Fernand Cormon.

After 1927, he never left Paris; working along the Seine in Summer and in his studio the rest of the year. During this time, his style began to depart from Impressionism, with a darker palette and sharper contrasts. In the 1930s, he turned to creating illustrations; notably for a special, numbered French-language edition of Viy by Nikolai Gogol.

Selected paintings