Vasili Nikolaevich Chekrygin

Rubinstein collection, Moscow
Acquired from the above in 1994

The sheet is hinged to the mount at the top two corners. It has discoloured in line with age, unevenly at the edges. In the lower half of the right edge is a very small tear of a few millimetres. There are a few scattered stains with spots of dirt in places and foxing is visible in the lower half of the composition. Held behind glass in a black frame. 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."

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 19^th century philosopher Nikolai Fedorov and adopted a Cosmist approach and aesthetic. Russian Cosmism of the beginning of the 20^th 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.