Alexander Vasilievich Kuprin

Acquired from the artist’s family by the present owner

Moscow, Vystavka proizvedenii zhivopisi i skul'ptury A.V. Kuprina i G.I. Kepinova, 1948
Moscow, Vystavka proizvedenii A.V. Kuprina i G.I. Motovilova. Zhivopis’, skul’ptura, 1956
Leningrad, Academy of Arts of the USSR, A.V. Kuprin, S.D. Lebedev, N.P. Ulyanov, 1977, no.90 (according to the label on the stretcher; not listed in the exhibition catalogue)

Exhibition catalogue Katalog vystavky proizvedenii zhivopisi i skul'ptury A.V. Kuprina i G.I. Kepinova, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1948, p.16 listed
Exhibition catalogue Vystavka proizvedenii A.V. Kuprina i G.I. Motovilova. Zhivopis’, skul’ptura. Katalog, Moscow, 1956, p.16 listed
K.S. Kravchenko, A.V. Kuprin, Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1973, p.236 listed

The canvas has been strip-lined. There is a layer of surface dirt. There are cracks in places, most notably to the mountain, the upper left corner and the area above the signature. There is a stretcher bar mark along the top edge and some frame abrasions at the edges with some minor associated paint loss in places. A faint diagonal scratch is visible to the sky in the upper left. Inspection under UV light reveals restoration to the edges and the aforementioned stretcher bar marks, above the peak and other minor scattered areas. Held in a simple painted wooden frame with decorative mouldings. Unexamined out of frame.
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A number of Kuprin's contemporaries were drawn to the Crimea in the 1920s, including his mentor Konstantin Korovin and Maximilian Voloshin, whose house in Koktebel attracted many artists in the 1920s. Kuprin first visited the region in 1907 while still a student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, in the hope of curing the tuberculosis which had interrupted his studies in Korovin's studio. It was not until the 1920s, however, that he turned to its landscape and architecture as a source of artistic inspiration. Between 1926 and 1930 Kuprin is known to have made annual trips to Theodosia, Sudak and Bakhchisarai, working en plein air for the first time in his career. As Kravchenko observes, Kuprin's views of the Crimea 'convey a sense of the monumental and the epic. They evoke images of distant classical history and cause one to ponder the fate of man.’ (Exhibition catalogue A.V.Kuprin, S.D.Lebedev, N.P.Ulyanov, 1977, p.11).