Leonty Nikolayevich Benois

About museum

Leonty Nikolayevich Benois – a Russian architect from the Benois family, a leading master of St. Petersburg eclecticism, and an educator. He was born on August 11 (23), 1856, in Peterhof. He was the son of architect Nikolay Leontyevich Benois and Camilla Albertovna Cavos. He was the brother of the painter Alexander Nikolayevich and the watercolorist Albert Nikolayevich Benois.  He was educated at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, which he completed in 1879 with the right to a pension-funded study trip, which he did not take.  

He taught at the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers and at the Free Art Workshops. He repeatedly served as rector of the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts. From 1892 to 1895 he was the editor of the journal "Zodchiy." He was one of the most prominent representatives of Art Nouveau in St. Petersburg. He was the author of the exhibition wing of the Russian Museum of Alexander III ("Benois Wing"), the choir chapel in St. Petersburg, and the income (rental) house of the Russian Insurance Society on the Petrograd Side. He also built in Warsaw, Moscow, Kiev, Tashkent, etc.

In 1910–1913, together with a group of architects, he created a project for the transformation of Petersburg. Founder and honorary chairman of the Society of Architect-Artists. In 1921 he was arrested and spent six months in prison. He died in Leningrad and was buried on the Literary Bridges of the Volkovo Cemetery in Saint Petersburg.