PETR PETROVICH KONCHALOVSKY | PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST LEVON BUNATIAN

The family of the artist

Private collection, Russia

Sotheby's London, Russian Art, 26 November 2007, lot 48

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Exhibition catalogue Katalog vystavki proizvedenii P.P. Konchalovskogo, Moscow: Tvorchestvo, 1922, no.118 listed

Konchalovsky. Khudozhestvennoe nasledie, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1964, p.103 listed as zhi 293

Exhibition catalogue Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky v Abramtseve, Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1977, no.52 illustrated b/w and listed

‘I don’t like to depict a person in his everyday environment, but always strive to find something of the style of the person depicted, to find in him something common to all humanity. It is not the superficial likeness that is important to me, but the artistic image’ (P.Konchalovsky, quoted in Khudozhestvennoe nasledie, 1964, p.29).

Painted in 1920, the present large-scale portrait of the artist Levon Bunatian (1898-1972), or Leonardo Benatov as he would call himself after emigration, epitomizes Konchalovsky’s portraiture of the early post-revolutionary period. The bare-chested Bunatian, then a student of Konchalovsky at Svomas/Vkhutemas, is seated in an armchair in his teacher’s studio. He is neither engaged in his work, nor bearing any attributes that would immediately identify him as an artist. While the objects stacked behind him are recognisable as canvases, the overall treatment of the background is near abstract, focusing the attention of the viewer on the sitter.

Stylistically, the work bears a close resemblance to Konchalovsky’s portrait of the sculptor Petr Bromirsky, dating from the previous year, and to his celebrated series of oak trees at Abramtsevo, in all of which the influence of Cézanne is ever present.

Portrait of the Artist Levon Bunatian was included in Konchalovsky’s first-ever solo exhibition, which took place to great acclaim at the State Tretyakov Gallery in 1922.