Throughout all his life Choultsé was a singer of nature in his art: he praised its lands, sky, moon, plants. But the most important elements, the true heroes of his paintings were undoubtedly snow and water. The artistic world of Choultsé is a world without people or animals. His preferred type of a landscape is a winter view, frequently not Russian but Swiss. He was called a "magician of light" because of an almost magic realism of his paintings. Toronto art dealer G. Blair Laing wrote in his book Memoirs of an Art Dealer, 1979:
" He painted spectacular snow scenes in which the light seems to come from behind the canvas and glow. The critics scorned these pictures as photographic and called them non-art - but today this style of painting is called "magic-realism" and is much admired by critics and museum people."
He was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, into a family of German origin (Schultze - original spelling of his family name - had lived in Russia since the 17th century). His first education was in electrical engineering. At the same time he tried to paint landscapes. When he was already thirty years old, he showed his first essays to a famous painter and member of Russian Academy of fine arts Constantin Jakovlevich Kryzhitsky (1858) -1911), who then invited Choultsé to study art. Other significant influences were Russian painter Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1841 -1910) and Swiss painter Alexander Calame (1810-1864).
Together with Kryzhitsky in 1910 Choultsé travelled to Spitzbergen, where he painted many Arctic landscapes (Datskiy and Medvezhiy islands, Saint Magdalene's bay of the Spitzbergen archipelago etc.).
After losing both of his teachers (Kuindzhi died in 1910 and Kryzhitsky committed suicide the year after) Choultsé begins to master his very own style of painting. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (1882-1960), being also a pupil of Kryzhitsly, founded a Society in the name of her late teacher and Choultsé frequently participated in its exhibitions, that took place in her palace on Sergeevskaya street, 46/48 (now Tchaikovskogo str.).
By 1916 Choultsé is already a widely famous artist, members of the Tsar family acquire his works (Nicholas II's brother Michael Alexandrovich, Grand Duke Grigoriy Mikhailovich and others). The Tsar himself is not much interested: as Choultsé noted later, in emigration, Nicholas II displayed no interest in landscapes or still lives, as they "told no story". Some works were bought by Сarl Fabergé (stated in his 1918's inventory). Post card development has greatly contributed to Choultsé's success - printing of his works on those "open letters" made him famous throughout the country.
In mid-1930s Choultsé moves to Nice, France. The last reliable account of meeting him belongs to Alexander Iosifovich Gefter (1885-1956), a marinist painter, member of various underground antibolshevik organisations and mason. He saw Choultsé on March 7, 1936 during a meeting of Russian emigrants in Breton castle on rue Saint Antoine in Nice. His gravestone on Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Nice states 1939 as the year of his death.
Meanwhile, there were some exhibitions of his works held after his departure and even after his death in New York City (April 1936, April 1940 and May 1943) and Oklahoma City (May-June 1938).
Choultsé's works are scarce in Russia, as Russian museums nowadays mostly lack his works, with rare exceptions of Saint Petersburg Arctic and Antarctic Museum and Dagestan Fine Arts Museum. His works can though be frequently found in American and Canadian collections (Hillwood Museum in Washington D.C., WSU Museum of Art (Washington State University), Indianapolis Museum of Art, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts). Many works are part of private collections.
[from Wikipedia]
Music: Slow Dancing Society "And To The Dust We Shall Return"