Alexis Arapoff

{{Short description|American painter}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Alexis Paul Arapoff | honorific_suffix = | image =  | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = {{langx|ru|Алексей Алексеевич Арапов}} | native_name_lang = Russian | birth_name = Alexei Alexeyevich Arapov | birth_date = {{Birth date|1904|12|06}} | birth_place = St. Petersburg, Russian Empire | baptised = | death_date = {{Death date and age|1948|09|25|1904|12|06}} | death_place = Henry Heywood Hospital, Gardner, Massachusetts | resting_place = Holy Cross Cemetery, Malden, Massachusetts | resting_place_coordinates =  | education = | alma_mater = Saratov Art Institute | known_for = | notable_works = | style = | movement = | spouse = Catherine Green | partner = | children = 3 sons and 3 daughters | parents = | father = | mother = | relatives = | family = | awards =  | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = https://www.artfira.com//site/en/artist/9b0ef881875488632ae89eda12a2eb55 | module = }}

'''Alexis Paul Arapoff''' (né '''Alexei Alexeyevich Arapov'''; {{langx|ru|Алексе́й Алексе́евич Ара́пов}};<ref>{{cite book|last1=Tolstoy|first1=Andrei V.|title=Они унесли с собой Россию--: русские художники-эмигранты во Франции 1920-е - 1970-е (They took Russia with them ... : Russian émigré artists in France, 1920s-1970s)|date=1995|publisher=Russian Ministry of Culture|page=483|isbn=9785863940687|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2MMuAQAAIAAJ&q=%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B9+%D0%9F%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87+%D0%90%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B2+1904|accessdate=19 August 2017|language=ru}}</ref> 6 December 1904<ref>Центральный Государственный Исторический Архив Санкт-Петербурга. Ф. 19 оп.127 д.1676 кадр 203.</ref> – 25 September 1948) was a White émigré Russian-born painter, first based in France in 1923, where he belonged to the École de Paris, and later in Boston, Massachusetts, where he relocated in 1930.<ref>''Massachusetts, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1798-1950''</ref>

==Biography== Born into an Orthodox noble family (Arapov) in Saint Peterburg, Russia, Alexis flew to Germany in 1917 to escape the revolution. When he came back to Russia in 1921, he was admitted to the Saratov Art Institute. In 1923, he went to Moscow, where he became a furniture designer in a workers' palace. Following this, he created suits and scenes for the "avant-garde" theater of Russian choreographer Nikolai Foregger. Later he worked for the "False Mirror Theatre" of Nikolai Evreinov, and followed the theater trip to Paris in 1925.<ref name="artfira">[http://artfira.com/site/en/artist/9b0ef881875488632ae89eda12a2eb55 Profile of Alexis Arapoff]</ref>

He remained in Paris where he met Catherine Green, an American studying at the Sorbonne.<ref>René Gimpel, "Journal d'un collectionneur", 18 September 1929, p. 572, édition Hermann de 2011</ref> They married and moved to the United States in 1930. Arapoff, a Roman Catholic convert since 1934, painted religious paintings and icons.<ref name="bc">{{Cite web |url=http://www.bc.edu/libraries/about/exhibits/burns/arapoff.html |title=Boston College University Libraries website |access-date=2011-02-24 |archive-date=2011-07-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719143924/http://www.bc.edu/libraries/about/exhibits/burns/arapoff.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> He became a U.S. citizen in 1937.<ref>''U.S. Naturalization Records Indexes, 1794-1995''</ref>

In 1948, Arapoff died at the Henry Heywood Hospital in Gardner, Massachusetts, after a car accident in nearby Ashburnham. He was survived by his wife, their three daughters, Anne, Catherine and Mary, and three sons Peter, John and Paul. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden.<ref>{{cite news|title=Funeral Planned for Alexis Arapoff|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/37795305/?terms=alexis%2Barapoff|accessdate=19 August 2017|work=Fitchburg Sentinel|date=27 September 1948|location=Fitchburg, Massachusetts|page=3|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Exhibitions== * 1928, Arapoff had exhibitions at Paris's "Salon des Indépendants" and at "Salon des Tuileries" * 1935, Solo exhibition at the Grace Horne Gallery (Boston) * 1938, at the New England Conservatory of Music and at "The Arts" (Boston) * Art Institute of Chicago * "Religious Works of Alexis Arapoff" Boston Library (Winter, 2002)

==Cross station== The Boston Public Library possessed six paintings of a "Cross station". These paintings were considered lost in the 1980s.<ref name="bc"/>

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arapoff, Alexis}} Category:1904 births Category:1948 deaths Category:Painters from Saint Petersburg Category:People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Category:Arapov family Category:Untitled nobility from the Russian Empire Category:Former Eastern Orthodox Christians from Russia Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy Category:Russian Roman Catholics Category:Painters from the Russian Empire Category:20th-century Russian painters Category:Soviet emigrants to France Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American male painters Category:American modern painters Category:20th-century American male artists Category:20th-century American painters Category:20th-century Roman Catholics Category:Federal Art Project artists Category:Painters from Boston Category:Road incident deaths in Massachusetts Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery (Malden, Massachusetts)