Pavel Tchelitchew

Acquired by the present owner from David Gill Gallery, London circa 1984-1985

Structural condition: The artist's canvas is unlined on a relatively newly-made keyed wooden stretcher. This is providing an even and stable structural support. There is an old label on the upper horizontal stretcher-bar as viewed from the reverse. Paint surface: The paint surface has a slightly uneven varnish layer. There is a pattern of slightly raised craquelure within the sitter's right shoulder, impastoed shoulder blades, around his ears and close to the left of the upper horizontal framing edge, and within the centre of his back. These appear stable. There is an area of paint loss between the sitter's shoulder blades, and within the upper left part of the impastoed right shoulder blade, a further small loss to the centre of the impastoed left shoulder blade, and a small loss just above his left ear. There is a further small loss between the sitter's legs close to the lower horizontal framing edge, within the lower right corner and in the extreme upper right corner. These losses appear to have been retouched but not infilled or textured. There are also several small paint losses in the lower right corner which have not been filled or retouched. Summary: The painting would therefore appear to be in good and stable condition and would benefit from cleaning, restoration and revarnshing, including the infilling, texturing and retouching of any paint losses.
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Tchelitchew settled in Paris in 1923 and soon became the protégé of Gertrude Stein, the famous American art collector and patron. Stein was a great supporter of Cubism and Tchelitchew’s technique changed during these years to encompass an earthier palette and a monumentality in his figures akin to Picasso’s Rose period. In 1927 he began mixing coffee grounds and sand in his pigments, creating heavily textured works, reminiscent of Georges Braque and Juan Gris’s Cubist still-lives.

Tchelitchew’s subject however was the human body. The present work is a superb example, most likely painted in the late 1920s, and similar to other male nude compositions of the period, such as Adam or The Thinker (1928). Concentrating on sections of the body, the artist considered these ‘a total image of the object, not only as the illusion of object as seen by the normal eye but as the sum of inner knowledge as well’ (Pavel Tchelitchew, An Exhibition in the Gallery of Modern Art, New York, 1964, p.48). The economy of colour in the present work is offset by the textured impasto which hints at the inner life of the sitter, even though we cannot see his face. In later works the artist used tattoo motifs to obtain a similar effect, for example in the 1934 painting Tattooed Man. In addition, Tchelitchew’s growing interest in the idea of metamorphosis is visible in the line that traces the outline of both the left arm and the body, belonging to either in equal measure.

Male Nude epitomises the turning point of Tchelitchew’s artistic vision, subsuming elements of French Cubism to the development of his own unique and much celebrated style.