He studied first at the Royal Art School 1899-1902, through the Finnish Association of Fine Arts, Helsinki, and from 1905 at the Russian Art Academy in St. Petersburg under Russia's most significant realist, Ilja Repin. Around 1906 he went to the academy of Simon Hollósy (1857-1918) in Munich, then to Paris where he had teachers in several  art directions. In 1907 he married and lived in Kiev. During his stay in Russia he was affiliated with the movements Mir iskusstva ("World of Art") and the Bubnovy election ("Router Jacket").

Until 1917 he was mostly in Russia, but the revolution in 1917 caused the couple to move to Oslo. Xan eventually came around and visited several countries both in Africa and Asia (landscaping). The travel business became part of his life and he did not stop even after he settled in Oslo.

He was for periods a decorative painter at the National Theater and in Moscow. He also worked as a sculptor. In 1925 he made the altarpiece in Totenviken church. It consists of two parts: a stained glass painting, which produces "Jesus bless the little children," and a fresco with the title "Nightingale Foundation".

His art carries traces of most of today's directions. His main work was about landscapes, but also images, portraits and, like his spouse, also flower pictures. He  held separate exhibitions in Odessa, St. Petersburg and Kiev, (also in Moscow and Riga). In Norway he exhibited in all major art associations, as well as having photos at the autumn exhibitions. He has also exhibited frescoes in the Georgian museum in Tblisi.

Xan was the son of Conrad Peter Krohn (1845-) and Ingeborg Severine Christine Krüger (1850-1910). His father was a ships crewman with a family from Farsund. His parents divorced and his mother emigrated to the United States in 1885 and the father emigrated to the United States in 1889.  In 1907, he married  Russian nobility - the artist Julie de Holmberg (1882-1956) from Kursk and they settled in Kiev.