Alexandra Exter

Estate of the artist
Collection of Simon Lissim, New York
Acquired by Walter Brendel for his son Peter Brendel in the 1970s

New York, Leonard Hutton Galleries, Russian Avant-Garde: 1908-1922, 16 October 1971 - 29 February 1972, no.19
Paris, Galerie Jean Chauvelin, Alexandra Exter, May-June 1972
Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, Liberated Colour and Form: Russian Non-Objective Art, 1915-1922, 1978, no.9
London, The Tate Gallery, Abstraction: Towards a New Art, Painting 1910-1920, 6 February - 13 April 1980, no.342
Probably Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Washington, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Avant-Garde in Russia 1910-1930: New Perspectives, 1980-1981 (not listed in the catalogue)

Exhibition catalogue Russian Avant-Garde: 1908-1922, New York: Leonard Hutton Galleries, 1971, p.36, no.19 illustrated; p.97, no.19 listed as Colored Tension and dated 1918
A.Nakov, Alexandra Exter, Paris: Galerie Jean Chauvelin, 1972, p.45 illustrated b/w and dated circa 1916
Exhibition catalogue Liberated Colour and Form: Russian Non-Objective Art, 1915-1922, Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1978, p.24, no.9 listed as Untitled and dated circa 1917
Exhibition catalogue Abstraction: Towards a New Art, Painting 1910-1920, London: Tate Gallery, 1980, p.95, no.342 listed as Untitled and dated circa 1917

The sheet has discoloured in line with age and there is a layer of surface dirt with spots of dirt in places. There is foxing throughout, but it is most visible in the unpainted areas of the sheet in the upper part of the composition and in the margins. Media staining is visible in the yellow green area in the lower left and along the bottom of the sheet. There are a few creases in the sheet, for example in the black in the upper left and in the white to the left of the centre. Areas of paint flaking are present in the white and yellow shape in the upper right and in the grey pigment along the bottom half of the right edge. There are other isolated patches of very fine craquelure but these currently appear stable. Mounted and held behind glass in a simple wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Executed during the creative whirlwind of the mid-1910s, the present lot is without doubt the most exciting work on paper by the artist to come to auction in recent years. The impressive exhibition history of this work includes the 1972 retrospective at Galerie Chauvelin, which included works from the artist's estate, and key American and European exhibitions of Russian avant-garde art staged in 1970s and early 1980s.  

Exter's experimentations with Ukrainian folk art, Cubo-Futurism and Simultanism throughout the decade culminated in the non-objective works of 1916-18, of which the present lot is a fine example. Although the vibrant palette and the dynamic composition are reminiscent of Exter's earlier Cubo-Futurist works, such as Florence (1914, State Tretyakov Gallery), the language is distinctly different. Composed of superimposed planes of colour, Dynamic Composition is devoid of any visual allusions to the world of material reality. Rather than being based on loosely recognisable motifs, it represents a study of movement of colour and anticipates the post-revolutionary 'laboratory' work of Popova and Rodchenko. This bold transition to the non-objective testifies to Exter's deft assimilation of the Suprematist theories of Malevich, who in 1915 exhorted artists to give forms the 'life and the right to individual existence' by rejecting nature as a source of artistic form.