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Russian Pictures

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 104. PAVEL TCHELITCHEW | STUDY FOR FATA MORGANA.

PAVEL TCHELITCHEW | STUDY FOR FATA MORGANA

Auction Closed

November 26, 01:34 PM GMT

Estimate

12,000 - 18,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

PAVEL TCHELITCHEW

1898 - 1957

STUDY FOR FATA MORGANA


signed in Latin and dated 39 l.r.; further bearing various labels on the backing board and frame

watercolour and gouache on paper

35 by 42.5cm, 13¾ by 16¾in.


Richard Nathanson inspected the present work in 2013 and confirmed its authenticity.

The artist

Iris and John E. Abbott, acquired from the 1942 exhibition

Robert H. Holmes, New York

J.T. Soby, Tchelitchew. Paintings, Drawings, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1942, p.94, no.160 listed; p.30 mentioned in the text

L.Kirstein, Pavel Tchelitchew, New York: The Gallery of Modern Art, 1964, p.64, no.227

New York, Julien Levy Gallery at Durlacher Bros., Metamorphoses by Pavel Tchelitchew, 21 April - 18 May 1942

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Tchelitchew, Paintings and Drawings, 28 October - 29 November 1942, no.160

New York, Gallery of Modern Art, Pavel Tchelitchew, 20 March - 19 April 1964, no.227

Savannah, Georgia, Bohemia Gallery, Works by Tchelitchew and Emanuel Romaro, October–November 1998

The present work is a study for Tchelitchew’s 1940 masterpiece Fata Morgana, considered by Alexander Kuznetsov to be one of his 'greatest metaphorical images'. 'This small oil painting has every right to lay claim to monumentality, with its grandiose concept and impression of the scale of the space embraced by the transformations' (A.Kuznetsov, Pavel Tchelitchew. Metamorphoses, 2012, p.47).


The present study was included in major exhibitions dedicated to the artist, such as the 1942 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and the 1964 memorial exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art. The art critic and collector James Thrall Soby wrote in his introduction to the 1942 exhibition catalogue ‘The mountains of this region [Saint-Jorioz near Lac d’Annecy, France] inspire him to paint the landscapes which are at the same time human bodies. Here he painted an oil of the hills as lovers Fata Morgana. A fine preparatory watercolour of this subject is included in the present exhibition’ (J.T.Soby, 1942, p.30).