Vasily Ivanovich Shukhaev

Collection of A.Chudnovsky, Leningrad

Possibly Moscow and Leningrad, V.I. Shukhaev, 1936 (Vsekokhudozhnik label on the stretcher but not listed in the catalogue)
Moscow, Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists of the USSR, Vystavka proizvedenii Vasiliya Ivanovicha Shukhaeva, 1958

Exhibition catalogue Katalog vystavki proizvedenii Vasiliya Ivanovicha Shukhaeva, Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1958, listed under works from 1929
I.Myamlin, Vasilii Shukhaev, Leningrad, 1972, p.77 mentioned in the text

Original canvas on its original stretcher. There are frame abrasions with some associated paint loss at the edges. There are faint stretcher bar marks along all four edges and horizontally through the centre of the canvas. The areas of very fine craquelure are mostly concentrated around the stretcher bar mark through the centre. Scattered minor paint losses are visible throughout the surface. There is a light layer of surface dirt. Inspection under UV light reveals scattered spots of retouching throughout, most notably to the treetops and the foreground. Held in a modern wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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In 1921 Shukhaev followed Alexander Yakovlev to Paris where for the next few years he worked prodigiously, teaching, exhibiting, producing theatre designs and book illustrations. In 1928 the artist and his wife left Paris for the south, spending the next year travelling and painting.

In the Auvergne is typical of Shukhaev’s views of French mediaeval towns from this period. While still students in St Petersburg, Shukhaev and Yakovlev, his friend and fellow Neo-classicist, had founded The Guild of St Luke, an artistic society whose express purpose was to revive the technique of the Old Masters. The sombre, ochre-heavy palette in the present lot is borrowed directly from the Old Masters and the use of tempera which creates a warm, subdued light recalls the technique fresco painting. Both style and medium are entirely suited to this timeless scene of a farmer leading a bull down the hill, the whitewashed walls of a modest town below contrast with the ancient castle ruins for which the region is famed on the hill in the distance.