Alexis Podchernikoff was born in Vladimir, Russia in 1886 to a family of artists. Podchernikoff immigrated to the U.S. in 1905, settling in San Francisco. Several years later, he was convinced by an art dealer to move to the Santa Barbara area where he specialized in traditional, romantic, realist landscapes of the Montecito area. Podchernikoff lived his final years in Pasadena, where he died in 1933.