Lot 121
  • 121

Aristarkh Vasilievich Lentulov

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description

  • Aristarkh Vasilievich Lentulov
  • Three Costume Designs for Ilya Muromets
  • each signed in Cyrillic l.r. and variously inscribed
  • watercolour over pencil on paper
  • each approximately: 42 by 30cm, 16 1/2 by 11 3/4 in.

Catalogue Note

Lentulov produced these designs for a 1938 play based on the legend of Ilya Muromets. The production was first performed at the Moscow Theatre for the Young Viewer. During the Second World War a scene from the play was performed by the Saratov Theatre to boost the morale of Soviet troops setting off for the front. Other examples of Lentulov's costume designs for this production can be found in the Bakhrushchin State Central Theatre Museum in Moscow. 

The Soviet art critic and dealer Victor Kholodkov (1948-2015) was particularly drawn to the graphic works and typographical experiments of the Russian avant-garde. He published a number of articles on the subject and contributed to exhibitions after his emigration from the Soviet Union in 1989, including the 1992 Guggenheim exhibition The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde. His extensive collection of papers and artwork relating to VKhUTEMAS was acquired by the Getty Museum in 1995 and his collection of Soviet music sheet covers is now in The Library of Congress.

The present selection of graphic works, oils and original film posters (lots 107-138) from the first half of the 20th century is characteristic of Kholodkov’s interests in the convergence of artistic, cultural and political concerns of the period. He is known to have purchased much of his collection directly from the artists or their families; others were acquired directly from Nikolai Khardzhiev, another well-known collector of the Russian avant-garde.