Alexis Paul Arapoff (Russian: Алексей Павлович Арапов) was born in St. Petersburg and died in Gardner, Massachusetts. He was a Russian national who later naturalised in France after the 1917 Revolution before moving to America in 1930. Long living in France, he moved to Boston in the USA in 1930.

He was born into a noble family his father, Pavel Arapoff, was a military doctor, and his mother, Ekaterina, an eye surgeon, was one of the first women to graduate from Moscow University. He spent his youth in Saratov, where his parents lived. He visited Crimea and the Baltic coast. In 1913, accompanied by his mother and sister, he traveled to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, visiting numerous museums. During the revolution in 1917, to escape food shortages, his family moved to a colony of Volga Germans near Saratov. It was here that Hans Van Bergler, later a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, gave him his first painting lessons.

In 1923, he moved to Moscow, where he designed furniture for a workers’ hostel and costumes and sets for Nikolai Foregger’s avant-garde theater. He painted portraits and posters, and was introduced to modern French art by Nicolas Simon. It was Simon who encouraged him to go to Paris to paint. He joined Nicolas Evreïnoff’s “Faux Miroir” theatre company, and took advantage of a tour of Warsaw in 1925 to leave the USSR for Paris.

To earn a living, he began working in a scarf-painting studio. He met other Russian artists such as Michel Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Ilia Zdanevitch, Jean Pougny and André Lanskoy. He painted landscapes, portraits and still lifes. He exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1926, the Salon des Indépendants in 1928 and the Salon des Tuileries in 1929 and 1930. He participated in group exhibitions of Russian artists in Paris organized by Galerie M. Henry in 1927, Galerie des Quatre Chemins in 1928, Galerie V. Girchman in May 1929,Galerie Zborowski in 1929, Galerie Zak in 1930, Galerie L’Époque in 1931.In 1927, Galerie M. Henry held a one-man show-of his work where all the paintings exhibited were sold. He exhibited at Galerie Percier in 1928 and Galerie Charles-Auguste Girard in 1930. He met his future wife, an American named Catherine Green who was a student at the Sorbonne. They married in Paris in 1929 and moved to Boston, U.S.A. in 1930.

Arapoff painted many religious subjects. He did not, however, abandon the other subjects that had made up his body of work. In 1934, he turned his attention to researching and applying the medieval technical methods of Orthodox icon painters. He strove to create his works in a spirit that combined the ancient art of the icon with the influence of the modern art of the time.He became an American citizen in 1937.He died in 1948 in Gardner Hospital, Massachusetts, after a car accident.

Exhibitions:

Salon d’Automne, Paris - 1926

Salon des Indépendants, Paris - 1928

Salon des Tuileries, Paris - 1928.

Grace Horne Gallery Boston - 1936 ,

New England Conservatory of Music - 1938

The Arts Gallery in Boston - 1938

Art Institute of Chicago - 1938

Boston Museum of Fine Arts - 1952 "Arapoff - A retrospective exhibition of his work"– A