Alexander Evgenievich Yakovlev

Collection of Alex Liberman, Paris
Acquired from the above by Roger Prigent circa 1980
Acquired from the above by the previous owner

Paris, Galerie Vendôme, Alexandre Iacovleff, November-December, 1965, no. 46

Galerie Vendôme, Alexandre Iacovleff, Paris, 1965, no. 46, pp. 12, 18, 20, illustrated
Alexandre Iacovleff: Itinérances, Somogy: Paris, 2004, pp. 108, 113, illustrated, incorrectly dated 1927

Original canvas, which is slightly loose on the strecher. There are lines of craquelure throughout. There are minor flecks of paintloss throughout including to the right arm of the standing figure on the right and the lower left of Penelope's face and to the right eye of the male nude top left. There is a surface scratch approx. 20cm long on the seated figure on the left. There are horizontal and vertical strecher marks running through the centre of the picture, which have been retouched. There is a small area of media staining to the left hand sitter's shoulders. UV light reveals small spots of retouching throughout.
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Penelope forms part of a series of large-scale paintings on ancient themes which Yakovlev painted in the late 1920s. These mythological canvases are testament to his wide-ranging interest in the art and history of Europe, the continent which he recalled nostalgically later in life when he had moved to the United States (C.Haardt de la Baume, l'Artiste Voyageur, p.134). He was 'a true Renaissance man' interested not just in Africa and Asia, but in ethnography, archaeology, theatre; 'he embodies a universal culture - at once Russian, he has completely assimilated the art of Italy and the art of France whose nationality he adopted... '(R.Charmet, catalogue introduction for Alexandre Iacovleff, Galerie Vendôme, 1965).

 

Yakovlev had been introduced to fresco painting when he studied under Kardovsky in Leningrad, but in 1928 he had an opportunity to study ancient wall-painting first-hand in Pompeii, where it is probable that he saw the extraordinary Odyssey series of early Roman frescoes, one of the great treasures of the site which bear striking parallels with the present lot. Monumental in plan, but rich and subtle in detail, these frescoes are comprised of deft, simplified strokes, with no sense of sculptural rigidity, everything bathed in the same rich, diffused and variegated atmosphere. Just as in Penelope, cast shadows round a shape into solid emphasis, and the same ruddy purples and greenish golds fade into pale blue in the distance. As Lucienne Gaumont commented at the time: 'Whether or not one likes Yakovlev's palette...one cannot deny that this artist has a sense of movement, of the bright and ornamental, and has a modelling which immediately engages you, of values which implant themselves spontaneously in your mind and body' (L.Gaumont, Expositions, La Renaissance, in Les Arts de France, April-June, 1929).

 

The story of Penelope is a poignant one. After the end of the Trojan War, she waits in Ithaca in the hope that her husband Odysseus will return. In order to keep the numerous suitors at bay, she conspires to weave a burial shroud for Odysseus' father Laertes, claiming that only after the shroud's completion would she consider remarrying.  For three years Penelope wove the shroud during the day only to unravel her work at night and successfully fended the suitors off until Odysseus' eventual return.   The tale is the ultimate antithesis to Yakovlev's own marriage. Aged 23 he had married a ravishing stage and cabaret performer, Bella Shensheva (also known as Kazarosa). Yakovlev, a traveller to rival Odysseus, left Russia in 1919 but Bella never joined him in Western Europe. In 1929, the year he painted Penelope, the couple eventually separated.

 

Homer's epic and the Greek myths were prime subjects for Yakovlev. His art, like heroic poetry, is focussed on people – whether in Africa, Asia or on stage, he does not focus on populations in the mass, but on individuals who emerge as clearly though simply defined characters. In the present work, the figure of Penelope robed in white stands out in the composition. During an earlier trip to Italy with Shukhaev in 1913, Yakovlev was deeply impressed by the Quattrocento artists: Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna and Cosima Turo. Here we find their influence in the dry and vigorous modelling of the figures - the rounded features of Penelope recalls Piero della Francesca's faces in particular – while the prominence leant to architecture, from the framing devices of the ceiling and column to the steps behind, are clear references to the importance of perspective and measured volumes and spaces in 15^th century Italian painting.

 

Unlike his portraits, theatrical work and well-documented travel paintings which have largely survived, his large canvases and murals are much rarer. In the late 1920s however, it was these massive conceptions that were in part responsible for his fame, prompting even an article in The Studio magazine in 1927, 'Alexander Iakovleff's mural painting'. Since emigrating to Europe in 1919, his numerous private commissions for murals had ranged from the Yusupov mansion in Paris, Princess Ruspoli's house in Vigoleno and Poussin-esque murals in Brussels. But as so many his murals have since disappeared and exist only in photographs or sketches, this important chapter of his career is all too often neglected. 

As Michèle Lefrançois writes in her essay Iacovleff et le décor mural, it seems likely that the series was partly inspired by his studies of mural-painting: 'Sometimes we find Post-Cubist elements in the lines, defined volumes and planes, (for example, in Penelope); at times they are airy, with gracious and fluid contours, they set the scene for mythological themes (for example, in Diana, Daphnis or Chloe)'. (M. Lefrançois in Alexandre Iacovleff, Itinérances, Somogny, 2004, p.105).

 

The offered lot was in the collection of another émigré, Alexander Liberman (1912-1999) who grew up in Kiev and moved to Paris. He escaped occupied France in 1941 with Yakovlev's niece, Tatiana Yakovlev du Plessix Liberman (1906-1991), whom he married the following year in New York. Liberman eventually became an artistic director at Condé Nast publications, and Roger Prigent purchased the painting in the 1980s while he worked as a photographer at Vogue.