[Santa]

Nicolas de Stael

French painter rosiyskogo origin
January 5, 1914 - March 16, 1955



Nicolas de Stael has a peculiar style of writing recognizable, which was formed in early 1950. His paintings are abstract, but they know the real things: if it's landscape, it looks like a bird's-eye view, in his still lifes discern dim objects. In his work embodied all the achievements of European activity in those years.

Nicolas de Stael (Nikolai Vladimirovich Holstein) was born on January 5, 1914 and was the son of the commandant of the fortress, General of the Russian army, Baron Vladimir Stahl von Holstein. His family emigrated after the revolution abroad, where the parents died one after another. But Nicholas and his two sisters were lucky - they were adopted by the Belgian Catholics.

His name is Nicolas and he received an excellent education, which allowed him to enter in 1932 the Belgian Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences. He visited all the European countries, had been in Africa. In 1936, he had his first solo exhibition.

In 1941, Nicola became interested in the expressive abstract art, has prepared several exhibitions in the early 1950s he became known in Europe and the USA.

To everybody's surprise, in 1955 he committed suicide, leaving behind more than 1,000 paintings. On the causes of suicide, there were various rumors: some said that the reason unrequited love, others - that it had a nervous breakdown on the basis of creative tension.