- 366
Niko Pirosmani
Estimate
800,000 - 1,200,000 USD
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Description
- Niko Pirosmani
- Arsenal Hill at Night, 1908
- oil on canvas
- 43 5/8 by 34 5/8 in.
- 110.8 by 87.9 cm
Provenance
Collection of Louis Aragon, Paris
Private Collection, Moscow
Literature
Titian Tabidze, Robakidze Gregory, Kikodze Gerontii, Zdanevich Kirill and Chernyavskii Kollau, Niko Pirosmanishvili, Tiflis: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, Gruzii, 1926
We are in Search of Pirosmani, Tbilisi: New Art Union, 2004
Catalogue Note
In the spring of 1912, Ilya and Kirill Zdanevich, two brothers who were students from St. Petersburg, and their friend, the St. Petersburg artist Mikhail Le Dantiu, completely unexpectedly discovered remarkable paintings by an unknown and untrained artist in a wine cellar in Tiflis, Georgia. The next day Le Dantiu wrote to his mother: "Yesterday I saw the works of a genius." The genius in question was Niko Pirosmanishvili (commonly known as Pirosmani).
What Ilya Zdanevich (Iliazd) perceived in the naïve work of Pirosmani was the modernity of his compositional framework, his reduction of form to geometrical structures, and the expressive power of his imagery. Zdanevich intervened on Pirosmani's behalf, convincing the avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov to include Pirosmani's work in the Target exhibition of 1913. In Iliazd's words: "And it is to this basic primitivism brought to canvas that Pirosmanashvili owes his dewy perfection, a necessary link between the traditions of the East from which he emerged and the art of the West still seeking its truth. Pirosmanashvili's work sets a valuable example for the painters of a new generation."
Around 1908 many Russian avant-garde artists embarked on a search for more vigorous, more immediate sources of inspiration, and they found them in naïve paintings, children's drawings, Russian Orthodox icons, painted shop signs, lubki (popular prints), and peasant crafts. Breaking away from the dogmatic conventions of academic painting, Russian artists turned to the bright colors, intense stylization, and directness of vision found in indigenous Russian and other Eastern sources. Neo-Primitivism as an aesthetic credo was supported by the leading figures of the Russian avant-garde. In existence in Russia as a cohesive artistic movement between circa 1908 and 1913, Neo-Primitivism was directly derived from the pictorial concerns of painters like Pirosmani. As the scholar Jane Sharp has pointed out, for artists such as Larionov and his fellow avant-garde painters "Pirosmanishvili's paintings established a mythic point of origin for Russian culture in the arts of the East, particularly of Georgia and Armenia."
Although Pirosmani produced an astonishing number of works--the total figure is over a thousand--only a few have survived, mainly due to the negligence of the owners or the closing of the spaces where the works were initially located, such as cellars, tea rooms, and pubs (Pirosmani often worked for just a cheap lunch or a shot of vodka). Only two of Pirosmani's paintings are located outside Russia. The present lot, Arsenal Hill at Night (1908), considered one of the artist's best works, is one of them.
For many years Arsenal Hill at Night was part of the collection of the noted French poet Louis Aragon (1897-1982). It was given to Aragon in 1957 on the occasion of the poet's sixtieth birthday by either the Union of Soviet Writers or the Soviet government. Aragon's wife was the well-known writer Elsa Triolet, sister of Lily Brik. The long-time muse of the Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and the wife of the critic and poet Ossip Brik, Lily Brik helped many aspiring talents and was acquainted with major figures of Russian and international culture. Arsenal Hill at Night was purchased with Brik's assistance possibly from Kirill Zdanevich. Brik was a devoted admirer of Pirosmani's works, and even collected his memorabilia. Since the painting needed restoration, it first hung in the Moscow house where Brik lived with her second husband, the writer Vasily Katanyan, and was later transferred to Aragon's apartment in Paris. Prior to its ownership by Zdanevich, the painting belonged to Bayadze, who operated a tavern in Tiflis. In 1920, the poet Kolau Cherniavsky found the painting in the Tiflis neighborhood where Bayadze's bar was located. In a monograph on Pirosmani published in 1926, Arsenal Hill at Night is listed as number 98 from the collection of Bayadze. It was then bought by Zdanevich--who had been so thrilled at his initial encounter with Pirosmani's extraordinary talents years earlier, in 1912.
Very little is known about Pirosmani's biography. For a long time even his date of birth was uncertain. After his father's death, the young Pirosmani was sent to Tiflis from the small Georgian village where he was born. While in Tiflis, Pirosmani at first lived with a military service man, Kalantara, who was his guardian. Later, Pirosmani worked as a train conductor until an illness forced him to terminate his service. He started selling dairy products, decorating his shop with images of cows. Pirosmani became somewhat well-off for a while, often giving away his paintings as gifts. However, he went bankrupt and ended up on the street, traveling from place to place with a suitcase full of art supplies and a threadbare wardrobe. He died in a hospital, penniless and alone.
What Ilya Zdanevich (Iliazd) perceived in the naïve work of Pirosmani was the modernity of his compositional framework, his reduction of form to geometrical structures, and the expressive power of his imagery. Zdanevich intervened on Pirosmani's behalf, convincing the avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov to include Pirosmani's work in the Target exhibition of 1913. In Iliazd's words: "And it is to this basic primitivism brought to canvas that Pirosmanashvili owes his dewy perfection, a necessary link between the traditions of the East from which he emerged and the art of the West still seeking its truth. Pirosmanashvili's work sets a valuable example for the painters of a new generation."
Around 1908 many Russian avant-garde artists embarked on a search for more vigorous, more immediate sources of inspiration, and they found them in naïve paintings, children's drawings, Russian Orthodox icons, painted shop signs, lubki (popular prints), and peasant crafts. Breaking away from the dogmatic conventions of academic painting, Russian artists turned to the bright colors, intense stylization, and directness of vision found in indigenous Russian and other Eastern sources. Neo-Primitivism as an aesthetic credo was supported by the leading figures of the Russian avant-garde. In existence in Russia as a cohesive artistic movement between circa 1908 and 1913, Neo-Primitivism was directly derived from the pictorial concerns of painters like Pirosmani. As the scholar Jane Sharp has pointed out, for artists such as Larionov and his fellow avant-garde painters "Pirosmanishvili's paintings established a mythic point of origin for Russian culture in the arts of the East, particularly of Georgia and Armenia."
Although Pirosmani produced an astonishing number of works--the total figure is over a thousand--only a few have survived, mainly due to the negligence of the owners or the closing of the spaces where the works were initially located, such as cellars, tea rooms, and pubs (Pirosmani often worked for just a cheap lunch or a shot of vodka). Only two of Pirosmani's paintings are located outside Russia. The present lot, Arsenal Hill at Night (1908), considered one of the artist's best works, is one of them.
For many years Arsenal Hill at Night was part of the collection of the noted French poet Louis Aragon (1897-1982). It was given to Aragon in 1957 on the occasion of the poet's sixtieth birthday by either the Union of Soviet Writers or the Soviet government. Aragon's wife was the well-known writer Elsa Triolet, sister of Lily Brik. The long-time muse of the Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and the wife of the critic and poet Ossip Brik, Lily Brik helped many aspiring talents and was acquainted with major figures of Russian and international culture. Arsenal Hill at Night was purchased with Brik's assistance possibly from Kirill Zdanevich. Brik was a devoted admirer of Pirosmani's works, and even collected his memorabilia. Since the painting needed restoration, it first hung in the Moscow house where Brik lived with her second husband, the writer Vasily Katanyan, and was later transferred to Aragon's apartment in Paris. Prior to its ownership by Zdanevich, the painting belonged to Bayadze, who operated a tavern in Tiflis. In 1920, the poet Kolau Cherniavsky found the painting in the Tiflis neighborhood where Bayadze's bar was located. In a monograph on Pirosmani published in 1926, Arsenal Hill at Night is listed as number 98 from the collection of Bayadze. It was then bought by Zdanevich--who had been so thrilled at his initial encounter with Pirosmani's extraordinary talents years earlier, in 1912.
Very little is known about Pirosmani's biography. For a long time even his date of birth was uncertain. After his father's death, the young Pirosmani was sent to Tiflis from the small Georgian village where he was born. While in Tiflis, Pirosmani at first lived with a military service man, Kalantara, who was his guardian. Later, Pirosmani worked as a train conductor until an illness forced him to terminate his service. He started selling dairy products, decorating his shop with images of cows. Pirosmani became somewhat well-off for a while, often giving away his paintings as gifts. However, he went bankrupt and ended up on the street, traveling from place to place with a suitcase full of art supplies and a threadbare wardrobe. He died in a hospital, penniless and alone.