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JAMES BUTTERWICK JAMES RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN AVANT-GARDE 1900-1934 AVANT-GARDE UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN HARVEST: BITTER RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN AVANT-GARDE 1890-1934

BITTER HARVEST 2 3 Front cover: Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter, Yaroslava (detail), 1928

Inside cover: (detail), c. 1918

RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN AVANT-GARDE 1890-1934

First published in 2017 by James Butterwick WWW.JAMESBUTTERWICK.COM

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise, without first seeking the permission of the copyright owners and the publishers. All images in this catalogue are protected by copyright and should not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. Details of the copyright holder to be obtained from James Butterwick. © 2017 James Butterwick Director: Natasha Butterwick Editorial Consultant: Simon Hewitt Stand: Isidora Kuzmanovic 34 Ravenscourt Road, W6 OUG Catalogue: Katya Belyaeva Tel +44 (0)20 8748 7320 Email [email protected] Design and production by Footprint Innovations Ltd www.jamesbutterwick.com

4 SOME SAW

James Butterwick

On 24 February 1917, a little over one hundred years ago, Diaghilev’s completed their second and final tour of the United States. The first, from January to April 1916, took in 17 cities and began at the long-defunct Century Theater and ended at the Metropolitan in New York.

Two of the leading lights of the Russian Avant-Garde, and , had been working for the Ballets Russes since 1915, when Larionov had made the colorful costume design or a Young Jester in the ballet Soleil du Nuit, featured in this catalogue.

The first solo show devoted to took place in New York, at Société Anonyme (of which he was later Vice-President) on East 47th Street, in 1923 – the year Kiev-born Alexander Archipenko sailed to New York to participate in an exhibition of Russian & at the Brooklyn Museum. Archipenko stayed for the rest of his life, becoming an American citizen. Boris Grigoriev, meanwhile, worked in the USA in the late .

In the days of Tsarism, before , and had been magnets to Russian artists. Under Soviet Rule trips abroad could no longer be freely made, many artists preferred a tough life in the USSR to permanent exile. Although Boris Kustodiev and Alexander Bogomazov died before Socialist became official state dogma, the later careers of Vasily Ermilov and Anatoly Petritsky in , and and Maria Sinyakova in , would be stymied by Stalinism.

New York has again been in the vanguard of international appreciation for what the Metropolitan Museum – in its Avant-Garde exhibition that closed March 12 – called the Revolutionary Impulse emerging from and Ukraine. For our first exhibition in New York we are delighted to show works representing artists from sweeter times – when their creative powers were at their zenith.

Natalia Goncharova L’Arbre Rose – Printemps, 1912 (detail)

2 3 PUSHING BACK THE BOUNDARIES OF THE AVANT-GARDE

By Aleksandra Shatskikh

Each of the works assembled by James Butterwick is an individual masterpiece in its own right. Together they embody the Modernist breakthrough that brought Russian Art to global attention.

One of the precursors of this breakthrough was Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) – an unrivalled draughtsman and colourist, whose images were constructed with geometric colour and tonal planes in a style close to the Cubist understanding of form. Legend has it that Picasso was enthralled by Vrubel’s works when he saw them at the exhibition of Russian Art organized by in in 1906. Vrubel’s captivating drawing Vova Mamontov Reading (c.1890) helps us understand why. It depicts Vsevolod Mamontov (1870-1951), the son of the pioneering Russian art collector Savva Mamontov, and uses ‘planes’ to build up an image in the style of Cézanne that presaged the Cubist revolution.

Savva Mamontov selflessly championed his artistic contemporaries, helping establish and develop an entire movement in Russian Art. His Abramtsevo Mikhail Vrubel estate featured studios, buildings and household items designed by artists in a ‘Neo-Russian’ style, inspired by centuries-old national tradition, that would affect monumental art, paintings, drawings and illustrations.

The wish to exploit past glories was shared by the refined artists from the Mir Isskustv (‘World of Art’) movement – and by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), even after he left Russia for in 1896. His Promenade Gracieuse (1904), with its horizontal emphasis and female figures dressed in 19th century fashion, looks like a design for a decorative panel in some sophisticated interior, and synthesizes the influences of the Vienna and as well as Mir Isskustv. The work’s harmony derives from its blend of poetic emotion and lyrical experience. Concern for the and mind underpinned Kandinsky’s paintings, drawings and writings. ‘Conveying the spiritual in art’ was, he explained, the main idea behind his approach. Wassily Kandinsky

Aristarkh Lentulov Study for a panel, By the Sea, 1915 (detail)

4 5 The talented Alexander Volkov (1886-1957) inherited Vrubel’s Romantic approach in beautiful Khokhloma patterns. His Costume Design for the of the to . Volkov’s small watercolour Eastern Fantasy (1918) also has the Buffoons shows a character holding rounded emblems of the grinning feel of a design for a decorative panel. It features languid, bare-breasted femmes Sun, shaped like the pancakes baked during the Maslenitsa Spring Festival fatales in a magical mosaic garden resembling a psychedelic, geometric-patterned inherited from pagan times. Larionov elevated costume-design to the realm carpet. Volkov had close links with Central Asia and spent nearly all his life in of art. Tashkent, pursuing his own, highly original approach to Russian Orientalism. Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) was the first of the female artists collectively The influence of Vrubel’s cut-out forms shines through in By the Sea (1915) by known as the ‘Amazons of the Avant-Garde’. Larionov was influenced by her Aristarkh Lentulov (1882-1943), a design for a large mural painted at the height powerfully organic pictorial . The clever structure of her L’Arbre Rose – of his powers. Lentulov was a pillar of the innovative Jack of Diamonds group Printemps (1912) brings to mind photography and the nascent art of cinema. The that showcased the daring, riotously colourful works of young artists; his two-layered composition combines middle- and long-range perspectives, with wealthy brother-in-law sponsored their first exhibition in 1910, when Lentulov’s the foreground dominated by the sturdy trunk of some fairy-tale tree, confined paintings attracted the most vociferous complaints from traditionalist critics. within its own frame, superimposed on a blossoming spring garden. The subtle Alexander Volkov The reasons for their outrage are not hard to find in By the Sea, whose quilted colour scheme, with its gentle contrasts and combinations, displays the same Natalia Goncharova colours exploit some of Lentulov’s favourite themes. Although an everyday decorative genius as Goncharova’s designs for backcloths and ornament in scene, this is a complex composition that encompasses a variety of subjects and Diaghilev’s ballets, and in her splendid panel Spanish Women from the 1920s. is imbued with erotic overtones: one lady flashes a breast, another raises her skirt to reveal her lacey knickerbockers. Dogs and horses patrol the shore as a red- Boris Grigoriev (1886-1939) became a celebrity in his twenties when, along with brick house, top right, extends the landscape’s foreshortened perspective. his friends, Alexander Yakovlev and Vasily Shukhaev, he was recognized as a saviour of Academic tradition due to his unparallelled skill as a draughtsman. Lentulov channels the viewer’s attention with almost wanton artistry, Grigoriev also knew many of the Futurists, led by Khlebnikov, Kamensky and transforming the riders into carpet ornaments as the foreground dogs become Burliuk, and collaborated with Mayakovsky on the satirical magazine Satirikon. cardboard cut-outs casting no shadow – unlike their mistresses who lounge in But the young Grigoriev differed from his radical friends in that he remained the sunshine with shadows defiantly painted in lurid yellow, in negative contrast a traditionalist and formal esthete, despite paying tribute to their rebellious to the habitual found in Realist and Impressionist works. On top of this riot pathos. In 1918, shortly before emigrating from what was then Petrograd, of gaudily painted clothes, figures and landscape, Lentulov introduces gold and Grigoriev published Intimité, illustrated with grotesque scenes of prostitutes, silver patterns to the ladies’ rugs. By the Sea’s eye-battering colours bring to mind circus performers and cabaret artistes. His Woman Peering Behind a Screen (1920), Moscow’s oriental cityscape, with its gaudy churches and exotic ornament. from the cycle Russische Erotik, mercilessly stresses the vulgar sexuality of the

Aristarkh Lentulov sturdy, half-naked lady in her extravagant hat. This rigid, sardonic image of a Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964) was the leader of artistic innovation in early 20th love goddess is created with graceful artistry and improvisational ease. Grigoriev century Moscow and one of the founders of the Russian Avant-Garde. His would remain famous for his virtuoso draughtsmanship all his life. dazzling talent found expression in numerous fields, including theatre design. Boris Grigoriev The famous impresario Sergei Diaghilev, an early admirer of Larionov, invited For many years Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927) lay in bed, paralyzed by an incurable him to take part work in his Russian Art exhibition in Paris in 1906 – then, in 1915, disease of the spine. So it is hard to believe that, shortly before his death, he invited Larionov and his partner Natalia Goncharova to , to work as produced such an idyllic picture as Spring. On the Riverbank (1927) – a lyrical designers for his Ballets Russes (neither artist would ever return to their homeland). watercolour featuring a casually dressed couple in a radiant landscape. Art The first ballet Larionov worked on for Diaghilev was Le Soleil de Nuit, an sustained Kustodiev’s creativity, granting him the strength to overcome personal adaptation of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Snegurochka (‘The Snow Maiden’), tragedy and suffering. based on Ostrovsky’s play about the beautiful daughter of Fairy and Old Father Frost. The maiden was made of snow, and melted in summer during After moving from Kiev to Paris – home to some of the greatest revolutions in the ritual ceremony honouring the Sun God, Yarilo – performed by Diaghilev’s the – Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) carried out a revolution young protégé Leonid Massine, who also directed the ballet. of his own, based on original sculpted forms and recourse to intense colour. Archipenko had become acquainted with in his early Larionov worked on Le Soleil de Nuit as both choreographer and designer. twenties, and corresponded with the founder of for His costume designs are among his finest achievements. He had introduced several years; Malevich included him, in absentia, in his association Neo- into Russian Art in the first decade of the 20th century, (1916-18). Archipenko was a ‘Parisian’ member of the Russian Avant-Garde with peasant woodcuts, signs and trays among his sources of inspiration. who later responded vigorously, in both word and deed, to the innovations Le Soleil de Nuit showcased his powers as a colourist: the robes of the in Ukrainian art. His decorative, synthetic Still Life (c. 1918) quotes his Mikhail Larionov peasants performing their ritual dance around the Sun God were coloured famous use of ‘negative’ volumes in sculpture: the left of the table-top is a Boris Kustodiev

6 7 fragmentary sketch of ‘emptiness’ that brings to mind the hollow spaces in in red chalk full of angular tension, and of a more lyrical 1922 pencil drawing his hallmark . with greater emphasis on nature. He helped establish an innovative national art in Ukraine, co-organized the radical 1910 exhibition, The Ring, in Kiev, as well as A love of clashing combinations of brilliant elemental colour was characteristic others post the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. of artists brought up under the southern sun of Ukraine’s fertile plains, whose picturesque landscapes were enhanced by the passion of their rural inhabitants Before his untimely death in 1930, Bogomazov taught successive generations for decorating homes, garments and household items with ornament and of Ukrainian masters at the Kiev Art Institute, where he was a colleague of symbol. The childhood of Maria Sinyakova (1890-1984) – one of five beautiful Mykhailo Boychuk. The rise of national identity among Ukrainian artists in the and talented sisters – was immersed in this rural art. Although she trained in 1920s was fostered by Boychuk and his associates. Their ideals gave rise to easel Moscow with Rerberg and Mashkov, her work was deeply influenced by the and monumental works whose stylized take on village themes was shot character, forms and structure to be found in the paintings, fireplaces, wall- through with a loving appreciation of icon-painting and an in-depth knowledge Alexander Archipenko hangings and embroidered carpets of Ukrainian Folk Art. The subjects of her of history and ethnography. elegant, multifaceted pictures came from an invincible arsenal of Ukrainian Alexander Bogomazov folklore, songs and legends. Her magnificently decorative Tree of Life (1914) and Bogomazov, however, pursued his own independent path, using an innovative spectacular, crowded Carousel (1916) create colourful narratives extolling earthly, artistic language. The central work of his final years was a triptych devoted to carnal love against a backdrop of luxuriant flowers and trees a-flutter with birds manual labour, commonly known as Sawyers, and echoing the great frescoes of of paradise. The freedom of her work is so close in spirit and form to popular times past. His large canvas Sawyers at Work (168 x 135cm) saw Bogomazov reinforce art that it sometimes seems that Maria Sinyakova was of the same flesh as her the solemnity of monumental art by a masterful combination of male figures and predecessors. But her creative output – unlike that of her nameless artistic geometrically structured logs. Sharpening the Saws (138 x 155cm) featured impeccably ancestors down the centuries – was blessed with immortality. placed, statuesque figures working in a kind of constructive ‘still life’ of logs and planks. The third work in the Sawyers cycle is known to us only from drawings Anatoly Petritsky (1895-1964) was an artist of unusually broad talents, and one of the and sketches – the most complete being the watercolour Rolling the Logs (1928- most resourceful Ukrainian stage-designers of his era. His designs went far beyond 29), whose sculptural shapes seem hued from stone, suggesting that the never- visual spectacle: Petritsky also co-directed theatrical productions. An expressive completed oil version would have been the most solid and dynamic in the series. example of his involvement in mise en scène is his Costume design for an executioner Bogomazov was also a remarkable portraitist, as revealed in numerous images of in Turandot in Puccini’s opera Turandot, staged in Kharkov in 1928. The flat, his wife and model Wanda Monastyrska and of their daughter Yaroslava, born in puppet-like, geometrical design includes a hood and, like all the costumes 1918. Her early years were recorded in drawings and paintings by her loving father, of the opera’s courtiers, had different colours to the front and back, which were whose Portrait of Yaroslava (1928) is one of his most accomplished masterpieces: an cleverly exploited on stage. When Princess Turandot asked her riddles, all her angelic vision shining with serenity and harmony, its quiet light pierced by the courtiers stood facing the audience in their cheerfully striped costumes; but, bright face of a young girl immortalized by her father’s genius. Maria Sinyakova whenever the hapless suitor gave a wrong answer, they jumped so that their blackened backs were now facing the auditorium. The palace setting was instantly transformed into a darkened space where the miserable victim would perish.

At his peak, Petritsky skilfully combined Constructivist techniques with the decorative colour of folk art. His innovative projects for decorations and costumes gave any traditional drama or in which he was involved an acutely modern feel and appearance.

Like many creative pioneers, Alexander Bogomazov (1880-1930) was both an artist and writer, who penned numerous texts analyzing formal creativity. He was educated at the Kiev Art Academy and, like his contemporary Sinyakova, trained in Moscow under Rerberg and Yuon. As a young artist he successfully re- worked the ideas of revolutionary European artists to forge his own, recognizably original style. His Cubist still lifes, portraits and cityscapes exploit powerful diagonals to build their own strong dynamics and create intensely emotional compositions. Bogomazov’s family , Boyarka, is the subject of a 1914 drawing Anatoly Petritsky Alexander Bogomazov Triptych Sawyers, 1927-1930

8 9 Vasily Ermilov (1894-1968) was able to synthesize impulses from various currents and directions. After a traditional artistic education in his native Kharkov, he was influenced by new ideas from Moscow and became a pillar of artistic innovation in Ukraine. He studied the as an adult, and was influenced by the exuberant colours of Ukrainian folk art. At the same time, his methods and techniques reflected close study and analysis of works by his contemporaries – regardless of nationality or country of residence.

Ermilov’s gift for synthesis underpinned his novel designs for everyday objects and decoration – New Style for New Man – and were embodied in his gouache Design for a Recreation Room in the Kharkov Palace of Pioneers and Octobrists (1934), where murals with lush floral patterns – another decorative element from Ukrainian Vasily Ermilov folklore – enhance the Constructivist and serve as a backdrop for classical statues; traditional fabrics and kilims on the floor emphasize national origins. With its econometric projection of the Palace interior, this design is a freestanding work whose decorative elegance reflects Ermilov’s artistic sensitivity and is endowed with the characteristics of . Such innovative creativity would soon be savagely persecuted in the USSR as ‘bourgeois formalism’ – especially in ‘nationalist’ Ukraine. Ermilov’s projects were consigned to oblivion; many of his colleagues were arrested and killed; and the development of Ukrainian Art was stunted for decades.

Dr. Aleksandra Shatskikh is a leading authority on the history of Russian Avant-Garde. She earned her first academic degree at the (1987), and second at the State Institute of Art Studies in Moscow (2001).

Dr. Shatskikh has written extensively on many topics, including Kazimir Malevich: Collected Works in Five Volumes (Moscow: Gilea, 1995-2004), which she edited. Her article, ‘Malevich and Film’, was published in The Burlington Magazine: A Centenary Anthology (Yale University Press, 2003), whilst her book : Life of Art 1917-1922 (Yale University Press, 2007) was awarded the RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN Robert Motherwell Book Award. Her most recent book is : Malevich and the Origin of (Yale University Press, 2012). She lives in New York. AVANT-GARDE 1890-1934

Right: Alexander Bogomazov Dacha, Boyarka (detail), 1922

10 11 MIKHAIL VRUBEL (1856-1910)

Portrait of Vova Mamontov Reading, c. 1890

Titled in Russian Вова читает книгу и видит... (Vova is reading a book and sees...) at top and Boka bottom right. Pencil on paper 14.5 x 8.5 cm PROVENANCE Artist’s family, Moscow A.B. Yumashev, Moscow N.A. Sokolov, Moscow, thence by descent

EXHIBITED Mikhail Vrubel 100 years since his birth – MOSKH, Moscow, 1956 (no. 38) Mikhail Vrubel – , Moscow, 1956 (no. 129, ill.) Mikhail Vrubel – , Leningrad, 1957 (no. 129, ill.) Mikhail Vrubel – Museum of Omsk, June – July 1996 (no. 2, ill.) Mikhail Vrubel – Museum of Private Collectors, Moscow, August – September 1996 (no. 2, ill.) Mikhail Vrubel – Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, February – July 1997 (no. 128, ill.) Russian Line – Sotheby’s, Moscow, 12 March – 30 March 2012 (p. 4, ill.) Acquisitions & Loans – James Butterwick Gallery, London, 30 May – 7 July 2012 Portrait behind the curtain – VDNKh, Moscow, December 2016 - March 2017, (p. 12, ill.) LITERATURE Mikhail Vrubel – P.K. Suzdalyev, Sovietsky Khudozhnik, Moscow, 1991 (p. 77, ill.) Russian Art: A Personal Choice – Kit-Art, Moscow, 2004 (p. 4, ill.) Russian Works on Paper from the Collection of James Butterwick – Kit-Art, Moscow, 2011 (p. 4, ill.)

12 13 WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944)

Promenade Gracieuse, c. 1904

Gouache and pencil on incised panel; incised panel on the reverse 22,9 x 59 cm PROVENANCE Nina Kandinsky, Neuilly-sur-Seine (by descent from the artist) Sotheby’s, New York, 4th November 1988, lot 228 Private Collection, Germany Villa Grisebach, , 24th November 1989, lot 23 Christie’s, London, 7th October 1999, lot 52 Sotheby’s, London, 27th June 2008, lot 321

EXHIBITED 25 Jahre denach – Munich, Galerie Thomas, 1990, (no. 55, ill.) Wassily Kandinsky: Gemalde, Aquarelle, Graphinken – Munich, Galerie Thomas, 1991, (no. 1) LITERATURE The Meaning of – John Russell, The Cosmopolitan Eye, New York, 1975, vol. v Kandinsky – Jelena Hahl-Koch, London, 1993, (no. 115, ill.) Kandinsky Drawings: Catalogue Raisonne, Sketchbooks – Vivian Endicott Barnett, London, 2007, vol. II, Appendix 1, (no. I, ill.)

14 15 NATALIA GONCHAROVA (1881-1962)

L’Arbre Rose – Printemps, 1912

Signed N. Gontcharova bottom right Gouache on paper 26 x 17 cm PROVENANCE Alexandra Tomilina-Larionova, Paris David Hughes & Co., London (acquired from above c. 1965) Private Collection, Julian Barran, London EXHIBITED Russian Line – Sotheby’s, Moscow, 12 March – 30 March 2012 (p. 10, ill.) Acquisitions & Loans – James Butterwick Gallery, London, 30 May – 7 July 2012 LITERATURE Maestri Stranieri – M. Botello, Turin, 1968 (p. 37, ill.) Russian Works on Paper from the Collection of James Butterwick – Kit-Art, Moscow, 2011 (p. 13, ill.)

16 17 ALEXANDER BOGOMAZOV (1880-1930)

Dacha – Boyarka, 1914

Signed & dated 1914. АБ bottom right Sanguine on paper 32 x 29 cm PROVENANCE Artist’s family, Kiev LITERATURE Ukrainian Avant-Garde – Mistetsvo Publishers, Kiev 1996 and 2017 (p. 80, ill.)

18 19 MARIA SINYAKOVA (1890-1984)

Tree of Life, 1914

Annotated and dated Красная Поляна. Лето 1914 (Krasnaya Polyana. Summer 1914) lower centre. Watercolour on paper 35.4 x 22 cm

PROVENANCE Acquired from the artist by Dmytro Horbachov, Kiev

EXHIBITED Maria Sinyakova – Kiev, Union of Writers of Ukrainian SSR, November 1969 The Phenomenon of the Ukrainian Avant-Garde 1910-1935 – The Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2001 (p. 173, ill.) Praising Plahta – Proun Gallery, Moscow, 2009 (p. 78, ill.) Boris Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv 1915-1931 – , New York, 4 December - 2 May 2012 (p. 148, ill.) Boris Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv 1915-1931 – Museum of Theatre, and Cinema, Kiev, 17 May - 12 June 2012 (p. 148, ill.) LITERATURE Ukrainian Avant-Garde Art 1910-1930 – Kiev, Mistetstvo Publishers, 1996 (no. 268, ill.) Ukrainian 1910-1930 – Kiev, National Museum of Ukrainian Art, 2006 (p. 269, ill.)

20 21 MIKHAIL LARIONOV (1881-1964)

Young Jester, 1915

Costume design for Leonid Massine in Dance of the Buffoons, Soleil du Nuit. Signed M. Larionow lower right Watercolour on artist’s board 38 x 26 cm PROVENANCE The artist, Paris Private collection, Arizona Bonhams Russian Sale, London, 7 July 2010 (lot 59) EXHIBITED Œuvres de Gontcharova et de Larionow – Galerie Sauvage, Paris, 16 April – 7 May 1918 (177-194) Œuvres de Gontcharova et de Larionow – , Paris, 11 – 28 June 1919 (237-247) Artistes Russes (organized by Mir Isskustv) – Galerie La Boétie, Paris, 1921 (as Le Bouffon) Artistes Russes (organized by Mir Isskustv) – unknown location, Paris, 1921 (as Le Bouffon) The Goncharova – Larionov Exhibition – Kingore Gallery, New York, 1922 (as Soleil de Minuit), 97-101 Russian Line – Sotheby’s, Moscow, 12 March – 30 March 2012 (p. 8, ill.) Acquisitions & Loans – James Butterwick Gallery, London, 30 May – 7 July 2012 LITERATURE The Soul of Russia – Macmillan, London, 1916 (p. 176, ill.) Russian Works on Paper from the Collection of James Butterwick – Kit-Art, Moscow, 2011 (p. 10, ill.)

22 23 ARISTARKH LENTULOV (1882-1943)

By the Sea, 1915

Study for a panel Oil, bronze and silver paint on canvas 87 x 71.5 cm

PROVENANCE The Artist, Moscow Mariana Aristarkhovna Lentulova, the artist’s daughter Acquired from the above in 1995

EXHIBITED Exhibition of Contemporary Russian Art – Adamini House, 7 Field of Mars, Petrograd 3 – 19 April 1916 (no. 264) Aristarkh Lentulov, 25 years as an artist – All-Russian Co-operative ‘Artist’, Kuznetsky Most, Moscow, 1933 (no. 56) Aristarkh Lentulov – House of Artists, Kuznetsky Most, Moscow, 1971 (no. 39) Seven Moscow Artists 1910-1930 – Gallery Gmyrzynska, Cologne, 1984 (no. 192) Aristarkh Lentulov – Central House of Artists, Krymsky Val, Moscow, 1987 (no. 68) Aristarkh Lentulov – Vienna, Belvedere Museum, 20 April – 29 May 1988 (n0. 34) Aristarkh Lentulov – 43rd International , Soviet Pavilion, 1988 (no. 17) LITERATURE Artistarkh Lentulov – Sovetskiy Khudozhnik, E. Murina, S. Dzhafarova, 1990 (no. 57, ill.)

24 25 MARIA SINYAKOVA (1890-1984)

Carousel, 1916

Watercolour on paper 35.4 x 22 cm

PROVENANCE Acquired from the artist by Dmytro Horbachov, Kiev

EXHIBITED Maria Sinyakova – Kiev, Union of Writers of Ukrainian SSR, November 1969 Ukrainian Avant-Garde – Zagreb Museum of , 16 December 1990 – 24 February 1991 (no. 174, ill.) The Phenomenon of the Ukrainian Avant-Garde 1910-1935 – The Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2001, (p. 174, ill.) Ukrainian Modernism 1910 - 1930 – Kiev, National Museum of Ukrainian Art, 2006, (p. 271, ill.) Praising Plahta – Proun Gallery, Moscow, 2009, (p. 72, ill.) Boris Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv 1915-1931 – Ukrainian Museum, New York, 4 December - 2 May 2012 (p. 149, ill.) Boris Kosarev: Modernist Kharkiv 1915-1931 – Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema, Kiev, 17 May - 12 June 2012 (p. 149, ill.) LITERATURE Ukrainian Art from Bronze Age to Contemporary Times – Rodovid Publishers, Kiev, 2016 (ill.)

26 27 ALEXANDER ARCHIPENKO (1887-1964)

Still Life, c. 1918

Signed Archipenko lower right Watercolour, gouache and pencil on paper 31.1 x 40 cm

PROVENANCE Erna Futter, New York Christie’s, New York, 2 October 1990 (lot 86) Collection of Lolo Sarnoff Sotheby’s, New York, 6 May 2015 (lot 346)

Authenticity confirmed by Frances Archipenko Gray

28 29 ALEXANDER VOLKOV (1886-1957)

Eastern Fantasy, 1918

In verso Woman in front of a Temple Signed А Волков bottom right Watercolour on paper 16 x 36 cm PROVENANCE Artist’s family, Tashkent Abramian Collection, Moscow Sun Group, Moscow EXHIBITED Alexander Volkov: Sun and Caravan – Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 2007 (no. 40, ill.) Russian Line – Sotheby’s, Moscow, 12 March – 30 March 2012 (p. 32, ill.) Acquisitions & Loans – James Butterwick Gallery, London, 30 May – 7 July 2012 LITERATURE Works from the Collection of Professor Abramian – Slovo, Moscow, 1988 (no. 43, ill.) Russian Art: A Personal Choice – Kit-Art, Moscow 2004 (p. 14, ill.) 500 Treasures of Russian Art – Harvest Publishers, Minsk, 2008 (p. 78, ill; incorrect size) Russian Works on Paper from the Collection of James Butterwick – Kit-Art, Moscow, 2011 (p. 32, ill.)

30 31 BORIS GRIGORIEV (1886-1939)

Woman Peering Behind a Screen, 1920

Original drawing for 1921 Russische Erotik series Signed Boris Grigoriev bottom right Pencil on paper 35 x 30 cm PROVENANCE Y.E. Rubenstein, Moscow Frank Virasoro, Argentina Zurbarán Gallery, Buenos Aires Bonhams Russian Sale, London, 30 November 2011 (lot 75) EXHIBITED Manoas, Brazil, (date unknown) Russian Line – Sotheby’s, Moscow, 12 March – 30 March 2012 (p. 16, ill. and on catalogue cover) Acquisitions & Loans – James Butterwick Gallery, London, 30 May – 7 July 2012 B. Grigoriev: Possessed by Line – Kit-Art, Moscow, 2012 (p. 15, ill.) Russian – Heritage Publishers, 2013 (pp. 50 & 149, ill.)

32 33 ALEXANDER BOGOMAZOV (1880-1930)

Dacha, Boyarka, 1922

In verso Futurist composition and date 1922 Pencil on paper 22 x 17 cm

PROVENANCE Artist’s family, Kiev Igor Dychenko, Kiev

34 35 BORIS KUSTODIEV (1878-1927)

On the Riverbank – Spring, 1927

Cover for magazine Red Panorama Signed and dated Б Кустодиевь 1927 bottom right Watercolour on paper 30 x 22 cm PROVENANCE Simon Belits, Paris Bonhams Russian Sale, London, 28 November 2012, (lot 56) EXHIBITED Posthumous Exhibition of the Works of Boris Kustodiev – Leningrad, 1928 (no. 745) LITERATURE Red Panorama N°26 – 24 June 1927 (pp. 12-13, ill.) The Drawings of B.M. Kustodiev – Gollerbach, E.F., Moscow/Leningrad, 1929 Boris Kustodiev – Etkind, M.G., Leningrad/Moscow, 1960 (p. 209) Boris Kustodiev – Etkind, M.G., Moscow, 1982 (no. 2781)

36 37 ALEXANDER BOGOMAZOV (1880-1930)

Tatyana Popova, granddaughter of Alexander Bogomazov, daughter of Asya (Yaroslava Bogomazova-Ivanikova)

‘I am delighted that visitors will have the chance to When her time came to enter school he made her his see one of the most extraordinary works of Alexander own alphabet and register of numbers. Letters were Bogomazov, the “Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter” fitted on to 5 x 5 cm squares, on which the object on (my mother), painted in April 1928. The artist had been the paper began with the appropriate letter. Figures working on a theory of the application of spectrals of were placed on to the appropriate letter and were pure colour to painting, which gave the style its own used by Bogomazov as a teaching aid for Asya. In our name, “spectralism”. Essentially it involves the use house our reminiscences of a husband, father and of only three colours, though of course in different grandfather were always warm and light. shadings, which gives the work this unusual quality, imparting it with a type of inner force and blue, cosmic The “Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter” is painted aura. The disjointed, slightly shifted form of the oval on a simple piece of board; times were hard and of the gives the image its energy. my grandfather was impecunious, despite being a Professor at the Art Institute and, of course, suffering My mother was thirteen years old when my progressive tuberculosis. There is an almost cosmic grandfather died but she managed to write her feeling of deep blue emanating from her. reminiscences, published in 1993, where she recalled My grandfather painted his daughter Asya older than her warm relationship with her father. He had made she was in reality (11). He already knew that it was not her a special chair on which she was carried on his his Fate to see her older and he left this life in June back when they had left Kiev on foot for Boyarka 1930. I remember my mother from my childhood as a during the hard, hungry years of the 1920s. Later he young woman and this marvellous portrait links us took her with him on his painting expeditions where for all time. sawyers worked in a sunny clearing. He pointed out how the colour of the logs changed dependent on the It is my firm hope that “Portrait of the Artist’s light, the play of light and shade, he told her of all the Daughter” will be admired by all who see it, most plants in the forest. He made Asya painted wooden especially for its luminous “Colour”, and I am most dolls, beds, screens, coloured with painted moths, grateful to James for showing it to the public.’ little boxes and much besides.

38 39 ALEXANDER BOGOMAZOV (1880-1930)

Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter, Yaroslava, 1928

Oil on board 59 x 59 cm

With inscription in Russian in verso Богомазов, Портрет Девушки (Портрет дочери), 1928, 59 х 59 Куплен у В.В.Богомазовой 21.xi.1969 за 300 рублей Ю.Ивакином, Bogomazov, Portrait of a Girl (Portrait of the Daughter), 1928, 59 x 59. Bought from V.V. Bogomazova 21.xi.1969 for 300 roubles by Yu. Ivakin. PROVENANCE Artist’s widow, Kiev Y. Ivakin, Kiev

EXHIBITED Alexander Bogomazov – Kiev, Writers’ Union of Ukrainian SSR, November 1966 (no. 2) 70 years since October – Kiev, State Museum of Russian Art, 1987 Ukrainian Avant-Garde – Zagreb, Contemporary Art Museum, 16 December 1990 – 24 Feb. 1991 (n0. 18) Alexander Bogomazov – Kiev, National Museum of Ukrainian Art, December 1991 – January 1992 (ill.) Avant-Garde and Ukraine – Munich, Villa Stuck, 6 May– 11 July 1993 (no. 12, ill.) L’Art en Ukraine – Toulouse, Musée des Augustins, 28 Oct 1993 – 17 January 1994 (ill.) The phenomenon of Ukrainian Avant-Garde 1910-1935 – The Winnipeg Art Gallery, 10 October - 13 January, 2002 Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, 9 February – 7 April 2002 Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, 21 June – 15 September 2002 (ill.) Ukrainian Modernism 1910 – 1930, Kiev, National Museum of Ukrainian Art, 2006 (no. 6, ill.) Crossroads: Modernism in Ukraine, 1910-1930 – Cultural Centre, July – Oct 2006 Ukrainian Museum in New York, 5 November 2006 – 29 April 2007 LITERATURE Ukrainian Avant-Garde Art 1910-30 – Mistetsvo Publishers, 1996 (p. 246, ill.) USA-Russia: On the crossroads of cultures – Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, Moscow 2005 (ill.) Malevich and Ukraine – SIM Studios, Kiev 2006 (p. 369, ill.) ART Ukraine – Journal of Ukrainian Art (no. 15), Kiev 2010 (p. 178, ill.)

40 41 ANATOLY PETRITSKY (1895-1964)

Costume design for an executioner in Turandot, 1928

Mixed media on paper 72 x 53.2 cm

PROVENANCE Gift of the artist’s son Anatoly Petritsky to Dmytro Horbachov, Kiev

EXHIBITED Anatoly Petritsky – Exhibitions Directorate of the Union of Artists, Kiev, 1968 (cat. 239) COMPARITIVE LITERATURE The Phenomenon of the Ukrainian Avant-Garde 1910-1935 – The Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2001 (p. 164) Ukrainian Modernism 1910 - 1930 – Kiev, National Museum of Ukrainian Art, 2006 (p. 251) Anatoly Petritsky, Theatre Costumes and Decorations – Kiev-, 2012 (p. 169) Grand Great – Inter Museum National Project, Mistetskyi Arsenal, Kiev, 2013 (pp. 128-129) Staging the Ukrainian Avant-Garde of the and 1920s – The Ukrainian Museum, New York, 2015 (p. 239)

42 43 ALEXANDER BOGOMAZOV (1880-1930)

Rolling the Logs, 1928-29

Study for the left-hand panel of the Sawyers triptych Watercolour on paper 25 x 30 cm

PROVENANCE Artist’s family, Kiev Vladimir Vitruk, Lvov E. Dymshyts, Kiev

EXHIBITED Alexander Bogomazov: Master of Cubo- – Moscow, Central House of Artists, March 2014 (p. 27, ill.) Time, Forward! – TEFAF Maastricht, March 2015 (p. 51, ill.) ILLUSTRATED The Collection of Vladimir Vitruk – O. Sidor, Lvov 2008 (p. 117, ill.) The Rhythm of Creative Will – E. Kashuba, Decorative Arts, Kiev 2014 (p. 67, ill.)

44 45 VASILY ERMILOV (1894-1968)

Design for a Recreation Room in the Kharkov Palace of Pioneers and Octobrists, 1934

Gouache, pencil and on paper laid down on card 103 x 73.5 cm

PROVENANCE Sotheby’s, 20th-century Russian and European paintings, 4 July 1974 (lot 87) Sotheby’s, London, 2 April 1987 Collection of Alfred Taubman, Sotheby’s New York, 5 November 2015 (lot 156)

46 47 Inside back cover: Alexander Bogomazov Rolling the Logs (detail), 1928-29

Framing: FA Pollak 70 Rosebery Avenue London EC 1R 4RR Tel: 0207 837 6161

Photography: Hugh Kelly 6 Minchenden Crescent London N14 7EL Tel: 0208 886 3172

Oil restorer: Paola Camusso Unit 33, Craft Central 21 Clerkenwell Green London EC1R 0DX Tel: 0207 607 8154

Paper restorer: Rosemary Stone 9 Bounds Green Road London N22 8HE Tel: 07815 910045

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JAMES BUTTERWICK JAMES RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN AVANT-GARDE 1900-1934 AVANT-GARDE UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN HARVEST: BITTER RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN AVANT-GARDE 1890-1934

BITTER HARVEST