YURI PAVLOVICH ANNENKOV | DEUX MAISONS

Collection of Maurice J. Speiser, Philadelphia (by 1930)

Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 26 January, 1944, lot 62

Acquired at the above by Norman Norell

Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 15-17 March, 1973, lot 565

Exhibition catalog, Annenkoff, Crillon Galleries, Philadelphia, 1931, no.3 illustrated

Exhibition catalog, Annenkoff, John Becker Gallery, New York, 1931, no.2 illustrated

A prominent lawyer and collector from Philadelphia, Maurice J. Speiser (1880-1948) frequently visited Paris with his wife in the Roaring Twenties and formed long-lasting relationships with modernist writers, musicians and artists such as Hemingway, Prokofiev and Chagall. Among them was Annenkov, who had settled permanently to Paris in 1924 and was already making a name for himself in the capital of the arts. In advance of his first solo exhibition in America which took place in 1931, Annenkov writes to Speiser: "Would it be possible for you to lend, such of my pictures belonging to you, to my exhibition? They are very representative of my work and their absence from the exhibition would be very regrettable for me." In the end not one, but two solo exhibitions would be organized, the first at the Crillon Galleries in Philadelphia, and the second at the John Becker Gallery in New York. The present lot was included in both exhibitions.