PETR PETROVICH KONCHALOVSKY | GREEN OAK TREES AT TWILIGHT

Collection of Savely Abramovich Sorine

Thence by descent to Anne Sorine, the artist’s niece

Thence by descent to the present owner

Exhibition catalogue Katalog vystavki proizvedenii P.P. Konchalovskogo, Moscow: Tvorchestvo, 1922, no.119 listed as Sumerki

Exhibition catalogue Exposition Pierre Kontchalovsky, Paris, 1925, no.18 listed as Chênes verts au crépuscule

Konchalovsky. Khudozhestvennoe nasledie, Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1964, p.104 listed as zhi 297 and location Paris

Konchalovsky spent the summer of 1920 working at the artist's colony of Abramtsevo, a country estate outside Moscow where artists and writers sought to revive a pure, national style through a focus on traditional folk art. The present lot depicting the oak trees at dusk was surely the result of Konchalovsky’s plein air studies executed during his time in the colony. ‘In my Abramtsevo oaks there is, of course, a connection with Cézanne’s technique (…) But my attitude towards nature was now different from Cézanne’s. I passionately sought to create a living landscape in which the trees do not simply stick out from the ground, as is often seen in modern painting, but logically grow out of it, like in the Old Masters, so that the viewer could sense their roots’ – recalled the artist (V.Nikolsky, Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky, Moscow, 1936). Exhibited at his solo exhibitions in Moscow and Paris in 1922 and 1925 respectively the painting is recorded in the exhibition catalogues as well as in the artist’s catalogue raisonné.