Nicolai Fechin 1881 - 1955

James and Helen K. Copley, La Jolla, California, 1966
By descent in the family to the present owner

This painting is in very good condition. There is a small spot of loss in the gray pigment at center, and a few scattered spots in the upper right quadrant. UV examination reveals a normal fluorescence of the artist's pigments with no prior restoration visible.
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Nicolai Fechin was born in 1881 in the city of Kazan near the Volga River to a craftsman who provided his son his earliest instruction in drawing and sculpting. At fourteen, he enrolled at the Art School of Kazan, then studied at the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg, from which he eventually graduated in 1908. In just a few years, the young artist attained international success, winning a Prix de Rome scholarship and a gold medal at a Munich exhibition.  In 1910, Fechin’s work received its initial exposure in the United States when the artist submitted works to the first of several International Exhibitions at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute. There, his works caught the attention of the dealer William S. Stimmel who began to sell the artist’s work to his American clients.

By the early 1920s, Fechin made the decision to immigrate to the United States with his wife, Alexandra, and their young daughter, Eya. With the assistance of Stimmel and several prominent patrons, he arrived in New York City in August 1923 at the age of 42. Once in New York, Fechin's productivity soared, taking full advantage of newfound access to high quality painting materials and the strong demand for his work. Although he continued to achieve financial success derived from numerous portrait commissions, Fechin also drew deep inspiration from his new urban surroundings, as exemplified by At Home in New York.

Painted the year following his immigration to America, At Home in New York is an intimate portrait of his wife, fondly known as “Tinka.” A handwritten note by Alexandra, which accompanies this lot, explicitly articulates the setting and the subject of the scene: "This painting was done in 1924, soon after we came to America. We were living in New York overlooking Central Park and I was the model in the painting" (June 29th, 1966). Here the artist has captured Alexandra in a contemplative moment. While she appears unaware of her husband’s gaze upon her, sunlight streams through the windows of the room and illuminates her figure with pure white highlights. The combination of Fechin’s dynamic brushwork and his application of vibrant shades of deep violet and red focus the viewer's eye on the figure, while the subtle lavender and grey highlights of her clothes integrate her within the overall composition. This dramatic tension exemplifies the artist’s expressionistic yet realistic technique that earned Fechin both popular and critical acclaim.