Leon Tutundjian

Estate of the artist (sale: Hotel Drouot, Paris, Tutundjian, 30 March 1987, lot 169)
Galerie Gorky Basmadjian, Paris (purchased at the above sale)

Paris, Le Salon des Artistes Indépendants, 1951 (label on the verso)
Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery and Leningrad, State Hermitage Museum, Vystavka khudozhestvennykh proizvedenii xvi-xx vekov iz sobraniya G. Basmadzhyana, 1988

Chahen Khatchatourian, Armenian Artists 19th-20th Centuries, Yerevan, 1993, n.p., illustrated
Gladys C. Fabre, Tutundjian, Paris, 1994, p. 139, no. 121, illustrated
Henrik Igitian, Museum, Yerevan, 1998, n.p., illustrated

Original canvas. There are areas of white deposits in the lower left and lower right, most likely caused by discoloured varnish; these are not visually disturbing. There are minor spots of staining in places. Inspection under UV light reveals a small area of retouching in the upper left. Held in a white wooden frame behind glass. Unexamined out of frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Still Life on a Balcony is a prime example of Tutundjian's Surrealist work, in which he explores the themes of disconnection and fragmentation. In 1933 he abandoned his abstract work and embraced the tenets of Surrealism, adopting the figurative style that was the hallmark of René Magritte and Salvador Dalí's painting. Although never becoming a formal member of the group, he was closely associated with André Breton and exhibited with the Surrealists throughout the 1940s and 1950s. As the critic Gerard Bertrand notes in his essay on the artist, Tutundjian’s visual metaphors are less explicit than those of Dalí. Much of the charm of the Armenian artist’s work derives from the subtle Indian and Persian influences one can trace in the details of his work (see Gérard Bertrand, Tutundjian, Paris, 1970). In the present work this influence is reflected in the patterning on the chair and tablecloth, for example. 

In 1923 Tutundjian emigrated to Paris where he befriended his fellow Armenian painter Ervand Kochar, who introduced him to Miró, Picasso, Mondrian and Jacques Villon. In 1930 he co-founded the Art Concret movement which espoused a non-figurative style and advocated a universal art composed of planes and colours executed crisply and mechanically.