Leonid Gechtoff (1883 – 1941) was born in Odessa, at that time imperial Russia. Around 1905 he fled with his parents to Egypt, supposedly to escape being drafted into the Russian Army. There he started painting is the at that time popular orientalistic style. He was a great admirer of Vincent Van Gogh, so he went to the Netherlands, Van Goghs native country, where he met his Russian wife Etya. In 1918 he and his wife moved to de Dutch East Indies, where he was overwhelmed by the vulcanic landscapes of Java. From thereon they travelled to the Philippines which since the Spanish-American War of 1898 was an American dependency. In 1921 the couple settled in Philadelphia where Gechtoff’s paintings had a ready success. This established him as a prominent American painter. Several big American museum’s have his work on display.