Abraham Mintchine

Private Collection, circa 1950s

Dublin, Irish Exhibition of Living Art, 1950

Original canvas. There is a horizontal stretcher mark and a layer of surface dirt. There is abrasion to the corners, a surface scratch near the left edge and paint shrinkage in areas throughout. UV light reveals an opaque layer of discoloured varnish and no apparent signs of retouching. Held in a gold painted wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

"Whatever became the subject of [Mintchine's] daring but delicate brush, whether things of simple daily life...or whether self portraits and vision of people, clowns, street singers, dancers...all these visions and sights, became filled with high-strung human significance, that always bore the seal of magic perception" (Gabriel Talphir, as quoted in Massimo Di Veroli and Giovanni Testori, Abraham Mintchine, p. 153).

Abraham Mintchine was born in Kiev in 1898 and studied both there and in Moscow before leaving Russia in 1923 to escape the turmoil of the civil war. He spent three years in Berlin working as a costume and set designer for a local Jewish theater and making a name for himself in artistic communities. It was during this time that he became interested in German Expressionism and began incorporating the movement's visual language into his own oeuvre, conveying emotional complexity through distortion of form and exaggeration of color. He participated in the landmark Erste Russische Kunstausstellung (First Russian Art Exhibition) held in Berlin in 1922, where his works hung beside those by such masters as Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich. In 1926 Mintchine left Berlin for Paris, then capital of the international contemporary art scene. He worked alongside a number of other Jewish émigré artists who had already settled there, including Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine and Robert Falk. Highly regarded by critics as well as his contemporaries, he had just signed a deal with the legendary Parisian dealer René Gimpel when he succumbed to tuberculosis at the tragically young age of thirty-three.