Alexander Gine was a landscape painter born to a noble family. He studied at the First Male Gymnasium in Kazan alongside the famous artist Ivan Shishkin. He went on to study at the Moscow School of painting, sculpture, and architecture before moving to St. Petersburg to attend the class of landscape painting by Sokrat Vorobiev at the Imperial Academy of Arts. He won several awards and prizes for his works, including a small gold medal for his painting View of Valaam, and was conferred the title of academician of landscape painting in 1878.

Despite his success, Gine died in extreme poverty in 1880 and was buried at the Malookhtinsky cemetery. His artworks are in public museum collections, including the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum, and the State Russian Museum. He illustrated several books and took part in exhibitions of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts until 1879. His famous paintings include Storm at Valaam Island, Rain, view of Gatchina outskirts, and Night, spring flood of Volga River, which were exhibited at the World exhibition in Paris in 1878.