Chana Orloff

The paint surface is slightly dirty and there are minor chips to the base and there are small flecks of paint loss elsewhere.
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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."

 

Orloff is known to have sculpted three different versions of this portrait bust, in plaster, wood and cement. These were exhibited variously in the early 1920s, in Geneva at the Exposition Internationnale d'Art Moderne, Russie and at the Societe des Artistes independants, XXXIIe exposition at the Grand Palais in Paris (F.Marcilhac, Chana Orloff 1991, p.212). Born in Ukraine, Chana Orloff lived in Israel from 1905- 1910, before moving to Paris where she sculpted some of the most famous artists of the era, including Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso. Orloff and her son, Elie, were in their turn the subject of a charming sanguine double portrait by Yakovlev in 1922.

Orloff was apparently deeply struck by Yakovlev's appearance – 'the elegance of his character, the vigour of his body and keenness of gaze' (idem, p.61). The critics were equally impressed by her ability to convey these qualities. On seeing the wooden version of this marvellous warrior-like bust in 1920, the reviewer of Art et Décoration wrote, "the painter Yakovlev, with his deep eye cavities and his slim nose, and his face pointed with his short beard, recalls some sort of figure from the Greek island of Aegina" (Robert Rey quoted idem, p.61). The smooth torso is reduced to strong, simple lines, and as Felix Marcilhac states, 'by accentuating this or that trait, amplifying this or that volume, Chana Orloff arrives at a sort of symbolic stylization [...] which allows her to express, with great subtlety, the imperceptible, the delicate, the inner life and the sensitivity of each person [...] In the portrait of Monsieur Jakovleff she expresses an acute mind, made keener by a great curiosity and a genuine sense of observation' (idem, p.40).