About Andrey Grin
The Painter of Paris · Contemporary Oil Painter
Andrey Grin is a painter of light — of quiet streets after the rain, harbours in full sun, and flowers on a windowsill. Working almost entirely in oil, he paints the places he lives in and travels through: above all Paris, but also the French coast from Honfleur to Menton, the lakes of Sweden, the islands of Greece, and the still, domestic world of the studio.
A career, then a calling
Andrey Grin was born in Moscow in 1956. He studied geography and teaching, and spent much of his working life in the city’s administration — in architecture and urban development, years given to how a great city looks and holds together. Art, though, was never far away. He had painted since boyhood (as a child he covered the walls of the family house), and he was a lifelong lover and collector of pictures.
In the early 2020s he set that career aside, took up oils in earnest, and moved to Paris — the city he had loved since his very first journey abroad from the Soviet Union. That early trip made him a francophile for life, and it is why Paris is today both his home and the beating heart of his work. Largely self-taught, he paints for the pleasure of it — a peintre de dimanche, in the affectionate title of his 2026 show, who happens to paint nearly every day.
The work
His subjects fall into a few recurring worlds — Parisian streets and cafés, the light of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, northern landscapes, and still lifes of flowers and everyday things. Each is painted from observation, attentive to a particular hour and season; many of the paintings note the season and place they depict.
In the lineage of the painters of Paris
For more than a century, “the painter of Paris” has meant a particular kind of artist: the one who catches a wet boulevard at dusk, a café spilling warm light onto the pavement, the grey pearl of a winter sky over the Seine. It is the tradition of Édouard Cortès — “the Parisian Poet of Painting” — of Antoine Blanchard and Eugène Galien-Laloue, who made the city’s ordinary streets feel like the centre of the world.
Andrey Grin paints in that lineage, but in the present tense. Where the tradition looks back to a Paris that no longer exists, he paints the one he lives in — Montmartre climbing toward the Sacré-Cœur, the rue des Barres in the flat morning sun, the canal Saint-Martin under a coming storm. More on that in The Painter of Paris.
In others’ words
Mastery of an art is a precious gift, nurtured by schooling and by immersion in an artistic world. But sometimes something quite different happens: art takes possession of its maker. Should we call that a gift? Rather — it is fate. And that, it seems to me, is the case with Andrey Grin.
Leonid Bazhanov, art historian and curator
He paints the Paris we love — a dream, cosy and refined, with a warm breeze and the smell of fresh bread. To see a city from the outside and yet convey its spirit from within, as though you had been born there — that is not given to everyone.
Katya Gerdt, designer
Andrey Grin burst into the contemporary art world as an original, vivid painter who broke the classical canons. His “unprofessional” manner creates a unique palette and an atmosphere of spontaneity and lightness. You want to step inside the painting, among its figures, because it is joyful and bright there. And besides — Andrey is my friend, and, to put it as elegantly as I can: I simply love his pictures!
Mikhail Shirvindt, producer and television presenter
Quite often, people who have lived a vivid life, full of varied events and impressions, turn closer to the end of their path toward pure creativity. Andrey Grin is exactly such a case. He has seen much, travelled much, and changed professions many times. His paintings speak for themselves — filled with a love of life, a vivid palette, inner harmony, and a high aesthetic.
Mikhail Konchalovsky, physician
“I’m not an artist,” the author insists, “I never trained.” And yet he devotes every free hour to painting — village landscapes, his beloved Paris, still lifes. An artist is not someone who was taught a craft, but a state of the soul.
Sergey Tsigal, artist
In 1891 Paul Gauguin completely changed his life and left for Tahiti, where he painted eighty masterpieces. In 2013 Andrey Grin also changed his life and painted beautiful pictures. I can’t speak for Gauguin, but about Grin I’ll say — it’s wonderful!
Denis Evstigneev, film director and producer
Recent exhibitions
- Peintre de Dimanche — solo exhibition
- Art Contemporain — group exhibition (ARTEAZY)
- Les balades d’un francophile — solo exhibition
- Espace Art Gallery — group exhibition
- Huile sur Toiles — solo exhibition
- Moscow Art Fair (МХЯ) — art fair
- Paris, and a little more… — solo exhibition
Enquiries
Original paintings are available for purchase; prices are shared on request. To ask about a specific work, a commission, or availability, please use the contact form, and follow Andrey’s work on Instagram and Facebook.