Alexander Konstantinovich Bogomazov, 1880-1930

Futurist painter and theoretician Alexander Bogomazov trained and worked in Kiev, where he became an instrumental figure in the development of the Ukrainian Avant-garde. This was less a cohesive movement, more a group of forward-looking, experimental painters originating from the Kiev School of Art, including Alexandra Exter, Alexander Arkhipenko and Aristarkh Lentulov. Each made a significant personal contribution to European modernism in the 20s and 30s.

Bogomazov’s oeuvre can be split into his early work, which was heavily influenced by the symbolism of Borisov-Musatov, and his mature, futurist work, built out of geometric forms and using vibrant colours.

In December 1908 he took part in the first Ukrainian avant-garde exhibition staged in Kiev, Zveno, which took place in a music shop and where he was to meet David Burliuk, the father of Russian futurism. In 1914 he helped to organize another such exhibition The Ring in Kiev. At this time he formulated his ideas into a theoretical treatise on painting, The Elements of Painting in which he traces the roots of Russian futurism in German Expressionism and in the works of Vasily Kandinsky and Mikhail Larionov in Russia.

The offered portrait depicts the artist’s wife, Wanda Monastirskaya-Bogomazova, whom he married in 1913. The background and the body of the figure are constructed from the geometric shapes typical of Bogomazov’s art at this time. The penetrating gaze of his wife and heightened colour scheme with a predominance of lilac employed in her hair and face both give the painting added expressive dimensions.