(b moscow, 31 may 1902; d paris, 22 aug 1976). french painter and tapestry designer of russian birth. the son of a russian count, he grew up in st petersburg, where he was educated in the corps des pages, and where he was impressed at the age of 15 by murals by the stage designer sergey sudeykin, with their use of folk patterning and traditional colour. his first attempts at painting (in watercolour and gouache) were made while he was a refugee in kiev in 1919 with his white russian regiment. in the spring of 1921 he managed to reach paris and immediately began painting in earnest. he found sudeykin in paris and studied for a short time with him and at the académie de la grande chaumière, and he discovered the work of van gogh and matisse. he also met chaïm soutine and painted some expressionist figures and still-lifes under his influence. in 1924 he was discovered by wilhelm uhde, who bought a number of paintings and recommended him to the galerie bing, where he had his first one-man show in 1925. although the first paintings lanskoy made in paris were of imaginary subjects, he soon began working from nature, and his work developed through a succession of phases. these included paintings with many small brushstrokes and thick pigment, followed in 1928–9 by pictures that became much brighter under the influence of the impressionists and of a stay in the south of france. in the 1930s he painted mainly single figures and people in interiors with semi-naive drawing and thinly painted areas of luminous colour, with a tendency towards monochrome. the colours were usually somewhat muted through the inclusion of grey.