Alessio ISSUPOFF ✿

Alessio Issupoff/Aleksej Vladimirovic Isupov (Vjatka, 1889-Roma, 1957) was a russian painter and trained at the Moscow Academy from 1900 to 1913. Here he studied with the portrait painters Seroff, Wasnetzoff and Korovine, masters who brought him into contact with the styles of French Impressionism.

While still a student, Alessio Issupoff exhibited at the Union of Russian Artists in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where he won several awards. After his military service in Turkestan, his paintings are enriched with oriental subjects, whereas before they were mainly oriented towards portraits, landscapes, scenes and still lifes.

In 1920 the Russian artist settled in Italy. His painting, initially inspired by Russian folklore customs, is updated in Italy to realism and is closer than before to impressionism. His vibrant and chromatically lit paintings begin to be presented at Italian exhibitions, achieving some success.

For many years he dedicated himself to the folklore of his land  the paintings dedicated to the Samarkand fair are famous but later he specialized in portraits and genre scenes, where horses and their dynamism are often the protagonists.

Issupoff's brushstroke often appears flaky and definitely impressionist in origin, very fast in defining violent splashes of colour. The speed of execution leads Alessio Issupoff to have some success as a portraitist, so much so that, over the years, he holds six personal exhibitions. In Rome in 1926 and 1928, in Milan in 1929, 1930 and 1931, in The Hague in 1931.

The snowy landscapes of his land are coveted by European collectors, even if, in the painter's repertoire, they represent the least genuine production and perhaps most dictated by the rules of the market. But slowly, he abandons the tradition of his land, to study Italian everyday life, living in different cities of the peninsula. After settling in Rome, Alessio Issupoff mainly deals with the portrait genre and horse paintings. He died in the capital in 1953.