Nathan Altmann

Possibly M.Etkind, Nathan Altman, Dresden, 1984, listed under works for 1929 as ’Brittany landscape, oil. Private Collection, New York’

The canvas has been wax lined. The surface is dirty and covered with a layer of yellowed varnish. There are signs of minor craquelure, especially in the upper left corner. There is paint loss around the edges. Under UV pigmet fluoresces in the lower right corner, upper right corner and around the edges but varnish prevents a conclusive analysis. Held in a gold painted wood frame with plaster molding. Unexamined out of frame.
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Altman travelled to France in 1928 with the State Jewish Theatre and remained there until 1935. In his monograph on the artist, Mark Etkind notes particularly his use of warm tones and varied greens in his landscapes of this period. The subjects were typically scenes of daily life in Brittany, Normandy or the south coast. Altman’s Small Town in Southern France from this period shows the same chalky ground tones, strong greens and impressionistic figures which we find in the present lot (Private Collection, St Petersburg; published in M.Etkind, Nathan Altman, Dresden 1984, no.27). Alexander Kamensky notes a new softness in his brushwork in the early 1920s which becomes more apparent in these ‘late impressionist’ Paris period paintings (see A.Kamensky, Natan Altman exhibition catalogue, Moscow, Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1978).