Camilla Albertovna Benois (1878 – 1953)

Camilla Albertovna Benois (1878 – 1953)
Untitled (Beijing gardens)

Signed (lower right)
Watercolour on paper
45 x 67 cm
Provenance: Private collection of the General Horvat’s family

Camilla Albertovna Benois (1878 – 1953), daughter of the
painter Albert Nikolayevich Benois and the pianist Maria
Karlovna Kind, came from an outs tanding artistic and musical
family. She loved fine art since her childhood being in atmosphere
of a creative life, she absorbed the love of fine art. Camilla Albertovna
had got a brilliant artistic and musical education and was
equally talented in painting, music and literature. Being in marriage
with Dmitry Leonidovich Horvat (1859-1937), managing
director of the KVZHD in 1902-1918 and one of the leaders of
the far Eastern emigration after the revolution, she manifested an
active social activity in Harbin.
The Horvat family was living in Beijing from 1920 to 1947. There
the activities of Camilla Albertovna became the centre of artistic
life: she ran the training studio for singers, piano players and
painters. She was the Professor at the Beijing national conservatory
and the Chairman of the Beijing Russian charitable society.
There the paintress continued her Russian spiritual mission
with the main long-years objective to help immigrants from
post-revolutionary Russia. She provided temporary shelter and
earnings to many Russian refugees. Occupying a high position
in society, having sufficient opportuni ties and being a kind and
attentive person, she was always ready to help needy people,
especially people of art.
As an artist she manifested herself most of all in watercolor painting.
She took part in the technical-industrial and art exhibition
in Harbin (1921). She organized several individual exhibitions in
Shanghai in the 1930s. She participated in a charity exhibition of
Russian artists-emigrants in the building of the Shanghai theater
‘Paris’ in 1933
The watercolour painting, presented in the catalogue, refers to
the Beijing period of the artist, the period of her serving to the
Russian spiritual mission.