Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova

Professor Nikolai Okunev, Prague
Thence by descent

The sheets have discoloured. There is some light surface dirt, otherwise they are in overall good condition. Unframed.
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Goncharova produced a series of black and white lithographs to illustrate Alexander Rubiakin's poem La Cité, dedicated to the memory of the author's wife, who 'died at her post on 27 January 1918'. The book was printed privately in Paris in 1920 in an edition of 325 copies with text that reproduced Rubiakin's handwriting.

The offered works are the only hand-coloured lithographs known to exist.

This set comes from an extraordinary collection of early 20^th century Russian art belonging to the art historian and collector Professor Nikolai L'vovich Okunev (1885-1949). Nikolai Okunev briefly held the post of cultural attaché for the White Government in Odessa after the Revolution, before fleeing via Istanbul and Skopje to Prague. From 1925 onwards, he lectured in Byzantine and Slavonic Art at the Charles University, and was also the director of the Slavonic Institute in Prague.

In 1932 Okunev began to compile an archive of Slavonic art. His initiative was supported by many of the greatest Russian artists of the day, including Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Alexander Benois and Ivan Bilibin. Many of them were close friends from St. Petersburg and not only gave works for the collection, but also provided extensive biographical material. This formed the database for Okunev's archive of Russian artists.

A deeply significant moment in the collection's formation was the 1935 Exhibition of Russian Art in the Klam-Gallasov Palace, for which Goncharova designed the poster for free. Professor Okunev collected more than 450 works from Czech and European collections, including works by many famous Russian artists from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, as well as works by young, emerging artists. More than 300 people attended the opening of the exhibition, and Alexander Benois, Osip Zadkine and Constantin Tereshkovich travelled from Paris to give lectures. The exhibition ran for three months and attracted more than 6,000 visitors.

Professor Okunev continued collecting until his death in 1949. His collection remained within the family, and in 1971 his daughter lent several works to the exhibition Russian Graphic Arts from the Early Twentieth Century in the National Gallery in Prague.