David Davidovich Burliuk

ACA Gallery, New York
Joseph H. Hirshhorn, New York, 1959
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (acquired as a gift from the above in 1966)

David and Mary Burliuk, Color and Rhyme, Hampton Bays, New York, 1962-63, no. 51 and 52, illustrated

This painting on a very heavy weave of burlap has not been lined. It is most likely stretched on its original stretcher. Under ultraviolet light no retouches are visible or seem to have been applied. It seems quite obviously that there is no damage to this picture. There may be a light varnish and it is clean. There are no retouches or damages. There is a slight bulge in the neck of the horse which could most likely be corrected. Other than this the picture is ready to hang in its current state. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Burliuk executed multiple variations of the present composition, including Der Rider with a Book (1913) [sic] and The Death Rider. The title and subject refer to Der Blaue Reiter, an Expressionist school led by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc that was active in Munich from 1911 to 1914. Both David Burliuk and his brother Vladimir were counted among its members, who sought to express spirituality through colors and abstracted forms; they were particularly drawn to the color blue, which was considered a spiritual color, as well as imagery of medieval knights and warrior saints, linked to spiritual heroism in both Germanic and Russian religious culture. In the school's eponymous almanac, published in 1912, Kandinsky wrote, "None of us seeks to reproduce nature directly...We are seeking to give artistic form to inner nature, i.e. spiritual experience."