[1][2][3] In an age of specialization, Avinoff brought an interdisciplinary approach to a broad range of fields, demonstrating the connections between culture, nature, spirituality, and art history.

In his novel Dar ("The Gift"), Nabokov based the character Konstantin Godunov-Cherdyntsev, his formidable Central Asian butterfly collector, partially on Avinoff.

His book collection, the largest compendium of Russian decorative arts volumes outside of Russia, is now housed at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, D.C.

Andrey Avinoff was born in Tulchyn in what is now Ukraine, (then called Little Russia), into an aristocratic Russian family going back to the boyars of Novgorod.

Andrey, his sister Elizabeth, and brother Nicholas Avinov were taught perfect English, French, and German by governesses and tutors.

[6] After graduating from Moscow State University with a degree in law (1905), Avinoff was appointed assistant secretary general of the Governing Senate, and in 1911 was named gentleman-in-waiting to the court of Tsar Nicholas II, serving in the Diplomatic Corps as director of ceremonies.

[10][11] In February 1919, Avinoff returned to Pine Bush, where his family had become frequent visitors at nearby Yama Farms Inn, a fashionable Catskills resort that attracted Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller as well as famous writers, musicians and philosophers.

[14] Seaman also helped inaugurate the portrait-painting career of Avinoff's sister, Elizabeth Shoumatoff, by arranging for her to paint many of his wealthy clients.

[15][16] The family sold the farm in 1920 but remained in the vicinity, living in a colonial mansion in Napanoch until 1926, when they moved to Merrick, Long Island.

[23] Avinoff's research associates at the Carnegie Institute Museum of Natural History included Childs Frick and the lepidopterist Cyril F. dos Passos, and Vladimir Nabokov, whose father he had known in Russia.

[38] His groundbreaking work on the biogeography of speciation showed how members of the genus Karanasa evolved into new, separate species in isolated mountain valleys in the Pamir Range.

[29] Avinoff applied equal[39] versatility to his work as an artist, bringing his expertise as a polymath in both art and zoology to bear on the exhibits, publications, and drawings at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History during his tenure there.

[41][42][43] His art works are remarkable for their precision, exquisite execution, and unparalleled elegance, qualities abundantly demonstrated in the 450 botanical illustrations he painted from live specimens for O. E. Jennings's Wild Flowers of Western Pennsylvania and the Upper Ohio Basin, published in two volumes by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1953.

Avinoff sold his Dutch Manner paintings to prominent families to raise funds to re-collect his Asiatic butterfly collection.

One of Avinoff's most famous series of illustrations, a was created (c. 1935–1938) for The Fall of Atlantis (1938), a long poem in Russian published in the United States by George V. Golokhvastoff.

In 1944 Avinoff published these illustrations, originally rendered in charcoal, chalk, brush, pen, spattering, and scraping on paper, in a limited folio edition of photogravures.

Out of the catastrophic destruction of Atlantis, with the backdrop of fuming smoke and burning ziggurat, the withered hand of the high priest emerges from the swirling tidal waves.

In an age of specialization, Avinoff brought an interdisciplinary approach to a broad range of fields, demonstrating the connections between culture, nature, science and art.

In every area of his expertise, Avinoff invoked an expansive and inspiring approach, which drew standing-room-only audiences to the talks that he gave in the lecture halls of the University of Pittsburgh.

His book collection, the largest compendium of Russian decorative arts volumes outside of Russia, is now housed at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, DC.

[43][50] Avinoff was profiled by Geoffrey T. Hellman in The New Yorker[51] in 1948, and he had been photographed for the cover story of a Life magazine issue slated to appear in fall 1949 when he died in July of that year.

"[55] In April–May 1982 Avinoff and his family were profiled in The New Yorker magazine in a two-part series written by his grandnephew Alex Shoumatoff (excerpted from his 1982 book Russian Blood).