Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky, 1876-1956

Moscow, Exhibition of Paintings by P.P.Konchalovsky, 1928, No.5;
St. Petersburg, Exhibition of Works by P.P.Konchalovsky, 1929, No.145 (A Woman at the Mirror);
Moscow, State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Neizvestnyi Konchalovsky [Unknown Konchalovsky], 2002, No. 63

V.A.Nikol’sky, Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky, Moscow, 1936, p.147;
K.V.Frolova, Konchalovsky: Khudozhestvennoe nasledie [Konchalovsky: The Artistic Legacy], Moscow, 1964, p.117;
Ex.Cat. State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Neizvestnyi Konchalovsky [Unknown Konchalovsky], Moscow, 2002, No.63, illustrated p.261

Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky was educated at the Academie Julian in Paris, Stroganov Art and Technical Institute in Moscow and at St. Petersburg Academy of Art. He attended the studios of the leading Russian artists Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov early on in his career, and in 1909 together with Ilya Mashkov, Aristarkh Lentulov and Robert Falk, Konchalovsky founded the artistic group Bubnovy Valet (Jack of Diamonds), a Moscow-based avant-garde movement.  Like other participants he was greatly influenced by French Post-Impressionism and his early works reflect influences by Gauguin, Cezanne, Derain and the fauves. Later in his life Konchalovsky's artistic preferences shifted towards the nineteenth century national art school and old masters, whose compositions he frequently employed in his work.

Red Haired Nude at the Mirror is reminiscent of Renoir's Bather Arranging Her Hair from 1885 (Fig.1), although it is executed very differently. Konchalovsky builds up the opulent forms of his model with broad paste-like brushstrokes of various colours. Her thick red hair nearly reaches the ground as if to balance the heaviness of the woman's voluptuous figure. The artist uses the same studio setting as in his earlier work A Woman at the Mirror, 1921 (Fig.2), but in contrast with the previously sombre palette he now adds some splashes of colour with the blue vase and the woman’s pink bow.