enois Albert Nikolayevich
(St. Petersburg 1852 - St. Petersburg 1937)
Biography
Albert Nikolayevich Benois (1852-1937), was a Russian watercolourist. Benois was from a Russian family of artists, of French descent. His father, named Nikolai Leontievich Benois was the famous architect of the Imperial Mariinsky Opera House in St. Petersburg, as well as many other historic landmarks. Nikolai Benois married the daughter of the architect Al'bert Kavos. Albert Benois's brothers were architect Leonty Benois and the painter Alexandre Benois. All three were part of a circle that comprised the leading arbiters of aesthetic matters in St. Petersburg for at least two decades before the Russian Revolution of 1917. This position was consolidated by the marriage of Nikolai’s daughter, Yekaterina, to the sculptor Yevgeny (Aleksandrovich) Lansere (1848–86): their children were the architect Nikolay Lansere, the painter Yevgeny Lansere and the painter Zinaida Serebrykoya.
Albert's daughter Maria married the Russian composer, pianist and conductor, Nikolay Tcherepnin (1873-1945). Their son Alexander Tcherepnin was a composer and pianist of note. Albert Benois was also the great-uncle of Sir Peter Ustinov.