Lot 17
  • 17

Vasili Nikolaevich Chekrygin

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vasili Nikolaevich Chekrygin
  • Illustration from the Resurrection Cycle
  • signed in Cyrillic and dated 1922 l.r.
  • graphite on paper
  • 25.5 by 38cm, 10 by 15in.

Provenance

Estate of the artist
Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne
Acquired from the above in 1992

Exhibited

Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, Wassili Tschekrygin: Mystiker der Russischen Avantgarde. Aus der Geschichte des Russischen Expressionismus, 1992

Literature

Exhibition catalogue Wassili Tschekrygin: Mystiker der Russischen Avantgarde. Aus der Geschichte des Russischen Expressionismus, Cologne: Galerie Gmurzynska, 1992, p.46 illustrated

Catalogue Note

The precociously talented Chekrygin might have been one of the Russian avant-garde’s most original artists and thinkers. While still in his teens he illustrated a book of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetry and was invited by Mikhail Larionov, who believed him to be clairvoyant, to participate in the famous No.4 exhibition of 1914. In 1920 Chekrygin discovered the teachings of the 19th century philosopher Nikolai Fedorov and adopted a Cosmist approach and aesthetic. Russian Cosmism of the beginning of the 20th century combined scientific discoveries with religious teachings, but at its centre was the belief in man’s eventual conquest of the universe. Not only through the literal colonisation of space but also through the achievement of immortality via life extension and the resurrection of the dead.

Chekrygin believed in the transformative powers of art on both man and the world. His interpretation of Cosmism was a sort of futurism which embraced the past. Unlike many of his peers he actively studied the great artists of the Renaissance; he was a devout, if unorthodox, believer in Christianity; and a founding member of Makovets. As a boy he studied icon painting at the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery and made many copies of the frescoes in the Cathedral of Saint Sofia which inspired his dream of creating a Cathedral of the Museum of Resurrecting. The present lot is a design for a series of large-scale murals destined for this cathedral. They were to illustrate the various stages of man leading to the Resurrection and ultimate perfection of the human race. The project was never realised because Chekrygin’s life came to an abrupt end at the age of 25 in June 1922 when he fell, possibly deliberately, under a train on the outskirts of Moscow.