André Lanskoy is the “count of abstractionism”, the founder of the direction of lyrical abstraction, one of the innovators of European abstract expressionism. He is indeed an aristocrat, a count by birth. He was born in St. Petersburg. His first lessons in painting were given to him by Alexandra Exter, the “Amazon of the Russian avant-garde”. In 1920, Lanskoy, together with the remnants of the White Guard, sailed to Constantinople, and from there he moved to Paris.