L12111

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Lot 30
  • 30

Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev

Estimate
250,000 - 350,000 GBP
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Description

  • Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev
  • Boy at Harvest TIme
  • signed in Latin and dated 1923 l.l.
  • oil on canvas
  • 61 by 51cm, 24 by 20in.

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist by Enid and Morton Goldsmith, New York
Thence by descent

Condition

Original canvas. The painsurface is slightyl dirty. There are lines of craqulure in places. UV light reveals very minor retouching in places to the lower section. Held in a wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Catalogue Note

In 1923, Christian Brinton, the legendary curator and dedicated promoter of Russian art, asked Boris Grigoriev to participate in the landmark Exhibition of Russian Art at New York's Brooklyn Museum. Grigoriev agreed and sent several portraits from his Brittany, Faces of Russia and Rasseia cycles, including the monumental Faces of Russia (fig.4), which were displayed to high acclaim from critics and the public alike. After the exhibition, Brinton wrote to Grigoriev, 'As to your success in America it has been really great; you have sold more than any of the Russian artists in my exhibition and your work has made a profound impression on the American public.' (Letter from Brinton dated 15 April 1923, Grigoriev family archive).

Brinton subsequently invited Grigoriev and his family to visit America for the first time, and they arrived in New York in October of the same year. Inspired by his new surroundings, the artist announced that he 'wanted to paint the new world, its skyscrapers and portraits of people' (The Art News, 27 October 1923, p.3). He spent much of his time in the city working tirelessly on portrait commissions, and exhibited these works in a series of solo shows at The New Gallery in New York. As his fame grew, Grigoriev travelled more extensively throughout Europe and America, though he returned to New York almost every winter.

It was during his time in New York that Grigoriev met Enid and Morton Goldsmith, avid collectors and patrons of the arts, and he often stayed with them in their home in Scarsdale, a suburb north of New York. He painted several portraits of the Goldsmith family, including a portrait of Enid's father, Julius Frank (fig.5) the couple's young sons John (fig.2) and Frank (fig.1), who is depicted in the present lot.

Boy at Harvest Time displays the intense psychological tension that pervades each portrait in Grigoriev's Faces of Russia and Rasseia series. As with many of these works, which were painted outside Russia based on the artist's memories of his native land, Grigoriev depicts the boy against the rolling fields of the Russian countryside. His 1923 exhibition at the New Gallery had featured a painting titled Harvest Time, and there are also obvious similarities with Grigoriev's earlier portrait of his own son, The Child of the World (fig.3), which hint at the artist's affection for his sitter, but also at a more sentimental approach of an artist painting in emigration. Grigoriev adds a further, spiritual dimension to the portraiture of this period by setting his subjects against a flat and geometric background reminiscent of Russian icon painting. His reliance on contour line and rejection of plasticity are inherited from Renaissance painting, while the warmth of his palette and daring planes clearly reflect the German Expressionist and French Post-Impressionist influences.