Leonid Afremov: The Complete Story
A rainy city street at night, every puddle and umbrella glowing in fierce reds, blues and yellows, all built from thick slabs of colour laid on with a knife.
The paintings of Leonid Afremov are among the most shared images on the internet, loved by millions who never set foot in a gallery.
He was a Russian born Israeli painter famous for vivid, knife painted cityscapes and landscapes, who built a huge global following by selling his work online.
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Painting with a knife
Afremov rarely used a brush. He spread oil paint with a palette knife, laying down bright, broken patches of colour that catch the light.
This thick, knife driven impasto gives his scenes their glow, with rain and lamplight built from pure dabs of pigment.
Rain, autumn and light
His favourite subjects are rainy streets, autumn parks, couples under umbrellas and glowing city nights, warm and romantic scenes.
This mood drenched landscape painting aimed straight at feeling, offering comfort and beauty rather than difficulty.
The internet artist
Afremov was a pioneer of selling art online. He marketed directly to buyers around the world through his website and social media, cutting out galleries entirely.
That model made him one of the most commercially successful living painters of his kind, with fans on every continent, even as the traditional art world ignored him.
A life of exile
Born in Vitebsk, the same Belarusian city as Marc Chagall, Afremov faced antisemitism in the Soviet Union and emigrated to Israel, later living in the United States and Mexico.
His sunny, hopeful pictures were made by a man who had moved across the world more than once in search of a safe place to work.
Common questions about Leonid Afremov
What is he known for?
Bright, palette knife cityscapes and rainy street scenes.
How did he sell his work?
Directly online, building a huge global following.
Where was he from?
Vitebsk, the home town of Marc Chagall.
When did he die?
In 2019.
Why his glow reaches so many
Afremov proved that an artist could bypass the gallery system entirely and reach millions directly, building a career on feeling and colour alone.
His rainy streets are now reproduced and copied worldwide, one of the rare bodies of work that found its public almost entirely through a screen.
So popular were his images that countless imitations and unauthorised prints circulate online, a strange tribute to a style instantly recognisable to people who could not name a single museum painter.
His family has continued to release his work after his death, keeping the glowing streets in circulation for the audience he built himself.
He taught himself much of his technique and worked at remarkable speed, completing thousands of paintings across his career to meet the demand of his online fans.
His warm, accessible style won him a devoted public even as critics overlooked him, raising an honest question about who gets to decide what counts as real art, the experts or the millions who simply love a picture.
His subjects ranged from Paris and Venice to quiet country lanes, but always returned to the same warm glow of light on wet streets that became his trademark across thousands of canvases.
Reproductions of his rainy scenes hang in homes on every continent, a reach that few painters of any era have matched. His sons have continued to manage and release his work since his death, keeping his glowing rainy streets in front of the audience he spent a lifetime building online.