His father was the composer Igor Stravinsky, who at the time of his son's birth was still under the private tutelage of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and his mother Yekaterina (née Nosenko), who came from a Ukrainian landowning family.
It was here where the young Strawinsky first began to demonstrate interest in painting, with his early efforts encouraged by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz and Alexandre Cingria.
[citation needed] He had his first solo exhibition in 1927 at the Galerie aux Quatre Chemins in Paris, subsequently spending two years studying at the Académie André Lhote in Montparnasse.
Although his father had obtained French citizenship for himself and most of his family in 1934, Strawinsky remained stateless as a consequence of the Russian Revolution.
He remained in France at the outbreak of World War II, enlisted in the French Army in 1939, and was deployed to Le Mans.