Constantin Westchiloff

Constantin Alexandrovich Westchiloff born Константин Александрович Вещилов / Konstantin Aleksandrovich Veschilov (15 December 1878 – 23 April 1945) was a Russian-American Impressionist painter.

Westchiloff was born at St. Petersburg, Russia. His father was named Alexander; his mother, Anna Vassilieva.

Westchiloff latinized his name to Constantin A. Westchiloff, when he emigrated to Western Europe in 1922.

He studied under Ilya Repin at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1898. He won an award in 1904 for the painting, "Ivan the Terrible After the Triumph of Kazan." He held a foreign study fellowship from the Royal Academy in 1905-06. He exhibited in the Royal Academy's Fall Exhibit of 1906, showing "Breakthrough of the Cruiser Askold in 1904 in the Yellow Sea," which documented the Russo-Japanese War. In that Academy exhibit he also showed portraits of Count Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky and of Lieut. S. Poguljajeff. He was also active in theatre design at the Petrograd Technical Institute.

Westchiloff emigrated from Soviet Russia in 1922, lived in Italy (1923-1928) and in France (1929-1936).

Passenger lists document multiple New York arrivals for Constantin. In his first arrival, dated 26 Sep 1935, he crossed the Atlantic alone on the SS_Île_de_France. Three subsequent, yearly crossings were with his wife Marie. They arrived in New York on the SS_Normandie on 23 July 1936. Their next two crossings were on the Île de France: one arrival dated 8 June 1937, the other dated 14 Oct 1938.

The U.S. Federal census of 1940 documents Constantine and Marie as living in Ward 15, Manhattan. Westchiloff was living at 58 West 57th Street in New York City, when he died. Cause of death was heart attack. He was buried 25 April 1945 in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Queens, New York.

Throughout his career Westchiloff painted a wide variety of subjects in the Impressionist style, but was particularly noted for his seascapes and harbor scenes. He operated a studio in New York and often painted coastal Maine scenes. Westchiloff showed much of his work at the Metropolitan-Reynolds Gallery at 32 East 57th Street, New York.

Typical of his large works, "Niagara Falls" at 57-inches wide by 48-inches high, appeared at auction in London in the early 1980s and was resold by an art gallery in Chicago.