Andrey Avinoff’s Butterflies

Legend has it that Andrey Avinoff fell in love at first sight—with butterflies—at age 5, while roaming the grounds of his family’s expansive estate in Ukraine. At 7 years old, he discovered a future mentor in William J. Holland, an early director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, when he immersed himself in Holland’s The Butterfly Book. By adulthood, Avinoff—also an accomplished artist—had become laser-focused on the study of the geographical variation in moths and butterflies across Asia, amassing a huge collection of specimens that would eventually be appropriated by the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. After fleeing his homeland during the Russian Revolution, Avinoff was recruited by Holland to bring his passion for butterflies to Pittsburgh, where he was able to more than replace his lost collection. Avinoff served as the museum’s director from 1926 to 1945, and the beauty
and diversity of his collection is treasured to this day.