Pavel Tchelitchev

Lincoln Kirstein, New York (acquired directly from the artist)
Private Collection (gifted from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Tchelitchew, 1942, no. 127

Lincoln Kirstein, Pavel Tchelitchew Drawings, New York, 1970, no. 28, p. 18, illustrated

Not laid down; 4 corner holders (with corners inserted) affixed to board; executed on a sheet of paper taken from a notebook (visible at left edge); a small hole in paper at lower right corner. Some staining and minor smudges, particularly at right edge; mat stain visible at 4 edges; somewhat dirty and lightstruck overall.
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According to Lincoln Kirstein, The Russian Singer was drawn during the summer of 1935 at Malcesine, Lago di Garda, Italy.  It is "one of a large series employing Tchelitchew's 'characteristic perspective,' or several vanishing-points within a single composition, to heighten a sense of precopitation, and to give to each figure the particular foreshortening most evocative or descriptive of its essential character."   The figure of the Singer appears in Phenomena, a large oil on canvas previously in the collection of the artist (Lincoln Kirstein, Pavel Tchelitchew Drawings, New York, 1970, p. 18).