Marie Vorobieff Marevna

Musée du Petit Palais, Geneva, no. 11239

Milan, Palazzo Reale, L'altra metà dell'Avanguardia, 1910-1940,  February 14-April 13, 1980
Rome, Palazzo Esposizioni, L'altra metà dell'Avanguardia, 1910-1940, July 3 - August 8, 1980
Paris, Musee Bourdelle, Marevna et les Montparnos, September 25-November 3, 1985, p. 72
New York, The Jewish Museum, 1985 

Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery, Marevna, October 14-November 9, 2004, no. 61, p.109, illustrated (exhib. cat.)

The powerful painting, Soldier and Woman in Gas Masks, is one of Marie Marevna’s most important works from her early cubist period. What distinguishes Marevna’s particular brand of cubism is her distinctive and playful commedia dell’arte figures. We cannot help but be transfixed at the dissonance portrayed on this canvas, its black comedy. The masked figures are performers of the most macabre kind, on the stage of war. Facts of her life make this painting darker still, as her father left her, forcing Marevna to fend for herself in Paris.

There is no doubt that the artist’s style was greatly influenced by her six-year relationship with Diego Rivera but she was also inspired by the artists around her, particularly by the work of Ferdinand Leger, his constructionist logic, energy of form and industrial-age inspiration.