Queer Places:
Neskuchnoye, Vul. Stara Neskuchna, Neskuchne, Kharkivs'ka oblast, Ukraine
Cimetière de Sainte Genevieve des Bois Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, Departement de l'Essonne, Île-de-France, France

Alexander Borisovich Serebriakoff  (September 7, 1907 - January 10, 1995) was a Russian painter, watercolorist and decorator, born on September 7, 1907 in Neskoutchnoy, near Kharkov (now Ukraine), who died in Paris on January 10, 1995. Exiled to France after the Russian Revolution, he practiced the rare specialty of interior portraiture, leaving a meticulous testimony of the decorations and celebrations of French high society. He often signed his works with his sister, Catherine Serebriakoff.

He worked for sponsors of high society in Paris or London, whose houses he represented, places of life, mansions and castles: among others, Mr. and Mrs. Arturo López Willshaw, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Alexis von Rosenberg, Baron de Redé, Carlos de Beistegui, the Rothschilds, the Schneiders, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Tree in Ditchley. He intervened in the decoration and notably executed a series of drawings of the Orienta Ball given by Baron Alexis de Redé, on December 5, 1969 in the Lambert Hotel, in Paris.

Alexandre Serebriakoff was born into a family of artists. Her mother, Zinaïda Serebriakova, was the first Russian woman to be recognized as an important painter. She was related to the Benois, a famous dynasty of Russian artists who emigrated from France in the 18th century. Alexander's great-grandfather was thus the architect Nicolas Benois, his great-uncle was the painter, decorator and set designer Alexandre Benois, founder of the Mir Iskousstva and friend of Sergei Diaghilev. His grandfather Eugene was a sculptor. One of his uncles, Eugene Lanceray, was a sculptor, painter and graphic designer, the other Nicolas Lanceray, a renowned architect. Alexandre Serebriakoff was seven years old when the October Revolutionbroke out. All family property was then confiscated, including the property of Neskoutchnoïe (in French, "Sans Souci") where he was born. His father, Boris, was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks: he died in 1919 of a typhus contracted during his incarceration. His mother took her children to Petrograd to try to survive, but, faced with difficulties, resolved to emigrate alone to Paris in 1924. Alexander and her sister Catherine will join her soon after. It was there that Alexander began a career as an interior decorator. He stayed in Camaret-sur-Mer and Concarneau, with his family, for several summers in the following years. Alexander Serebriakoff is buried with his mother, Zinaïda Serebriakova, in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.

Alexandre Serebriakoff, 1944, The XVIII th century rotunda salon, Château de Groussay, owned by Carlos de Beistegui. The fabric woven by Prelle in 1941, is the same as the one which lines Marie Antoinette’s bedroom in Versailles/em>