Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev

In 1924 a series of paintings and works on paper by Grigoriev from the early 1920s was published in Berlin by Petropolis under the title Boui bouis au bord de la mer. These works were inspired by Grigoriev’s travels around French seaside towns, including Marseille and Toulon, and depicted regulars of the local taverns and bars, or boui-bouis, as these establishments were known in French at the time. Texts by the art critic Sergei Makovsky and the writer and translator Boris Schlözer accompanied the illustrations, providing an in-depth art-critical assessment of Grigoriev’s oeuvre.

The present lot, although not illustrated in the 1924 publication, is evidently part of the same series and the figures of both sailors are very similar to those found in the book. In particular, the figure on the left is closely comparable to the sailor about to walk through the doors of a bar in the oil painting reproduced between pages 20 and 21.