Eugene Lanceray

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Portrait of Lanceray (1907), by Konstantin Somov.

Yevgeny Yevgenievich Lanceray, also spelled Lansere (23 August 1875 – 13 September 1946), was a Russian graphic artist (painter, sculptor, mosaicist, illustrator) stylistically associated with the World of Art.

Lanceray was born in Pavlovsk. His father was a prominent sculptor, and his uncle was Alexandre Benois, an essential figure in the artistic world of Europe. Lanceray was enrolled at the Académie Colarossi and Académie Julian between 1895 and 1898. Like other World of Art members, he was fascinated with the "sparkling dust" of rococo art and often turned to the 18th century Russian history for inspiration.

Lanceray was the only leading member of the World of Art to remain in Russia after the Revolution of 1917. Even his sister, Zinaida Serebriakova, found the revolutionary milieu alien to her art and left for Paris. Lanceray, who had been illustrating revolutionary periodicals during the First Russian Revolution, went to Ankara. He became enchanted with oriental themes, moved to Dagestan and eventually settled in Tbilisi. During his stay in Georgia, he read lectures in the local academy of arts and illustrated the Caucasian novellas of Leo Tolstoy.

It was not until 1933 that Lanceray returned to Moscow, where he became involved in the decoration of the Kazan Railway Station and the Hotel Moskva. Three years before his death, he was honoured with the Stalin Prize. He died in Moscow at age 71.