During the two years of his life that he spent in Istanbul, Alexis Gritchenko produced more paintings dedicated to the city than many artists produce in an entire lifetime. Gritchenko is also particularly known for his memoirs titled Deux Ans à Constantinople (Two Years in Constantinople), an invaluable source that tells us about his life as a Russian-speaking émigré painter in the occupied city. However, despite the fact that Gritchenko left the Russian Empire to escape the civil war which followed the Russian Revolution, he, by his own admission, decided to flee partly out of a long-held desire to live and work in Istanbul, a city of which he had a surprisingly deep knowledge and which excited his imagination. The reality of life in Istanbul turned out to be much harsher than he had expected, but this did not stop him from working tirelessly and making a colossal number of works. He and his closest friend in Istanbul, Dimitri Ismailovitch, explored the city together and studied many of the local Byzantine monuments. As someone who generally got along well with people, he also formed close friendships with a number of Turkish artists and even lived for some time at the home of Turkish painter Ibrahim Çallı. After Istanbul he set off to conquer Paris with the money he received for the 66 artworks featuring Byzantine city walls and churches that he sold to the American archaeologist Thomas Whittemore (who stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel and worked with Nikolai Kluge at Hagia Sophia). He managed to conquer Paris almost immediately, starting with his first solo exhibition Constantinople Bleu et Rose (Constantinople Blue and Rose), which took place in 1922. He continued to live in France, but travelled frequently to other countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy in search of inspiration. Gritchenko organised many solo exhibitions in Paris and other cities around the world. In 1953, his works were exhibited in London's Redfern Gallery at the Russian émigré artists in Paris exhibition, and in 1958 the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York organised a retrospective exhibition dedicated to the artist’s 75th birthday. Today, the artist’s works can be seen in the most famous museums in the world (National Art Museum in Kiev, National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, museums in Lviv, Copenhagen, Montreal, Boston, etc.). In 2020, works from his Istanbul period were brought together from all over the world and exhibited in Istanbul. Last but not least, Gritchenko developed his own art direction, tsvetodynamos (or dynamocolor/colordynamos, a combination of “colour” and dynamics”).