Early Life and Influences Nicolas de Staël, born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein in Saint Petersburg on January 5, 1914, was a painter whose life and art were profoundly shaped by his Russian heritage and subsequent exile. His family’s aristocratic background – tracing back to Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, the last commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress – carried with it both privilege and the weight of historical uph…