Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev
Design for the Spectators in The Power of the Fiend
signed and inscribed in Cyrillic and dated 1919 l.r.
watercolour over pencil on paper
21 by 33.5cm, 8 1/4 by 13 1/4 in.

Provenance

The collection of Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (1873-1938)
Sotheby's London, Russian Pictures, 22 May 2002, lot 69

Catalogue Note

The post-revolutionary period in Kustodiev's work for the theatre was marked by new directions in his artistic quest. As Victoria Lebedeva points out, in his designs he was 'searching for simplicity and a laconic manner... Gone was the superfluous bulkiness, and the productions became more vivid. They no longer gave the impression that everything was solid and permanent, and the sense of theatricality grew stronger' (V.Lebedeva, Kustodiev, The Artist and His Work,1981).

He also began to be attracted to opera, and from 1918 to 1920 he worked on the sets for four operatic productions. He was anxious to create a broad, colourful spectacle, ebullient with colour. The Power of the Fiend was written by Alexander Serov (1820-1871), the father of the painter Valentin Serov, and produced by Chaliapin at the Marinsky Theatre in Petrograd in 1919. Kustodiev's designs for the production 'were executed in a major key, with a keen sense of the monumental, stately nature of the opera, its scope and solemnity' (ibid).