Catalogue: Important Russian Art Auction
15 October 2020
124. KLIUN, IVAN (1873–1943)
Kazimir Malevich Reaping Buckweat, signed with initials, further inscribed in Cyrillic "K. Malevich na kosbe" on the reverse.
Pencil and watercolour on paper, 22 by 28 cm.
5,000–7,000 GBP
Provenance: Collection of S. Kliunkova-Soloveichik.
Private collection, USA.
Private collection, Europe.
The work bears a stamp with authentication from S. Kliunkova-Soloveichik, the artist’s granddaughter, on the reverse.
Authenticity of the work has been confirmed by the expert O. Glebova.
Literature: S. Kliunkova-Soloveichik, Ivan Vasilievich Kliun, New York, IVK Art, 1993, p. 305, illustrated and listed.
The strong friendship which existed between Ivan Kliun and Kazimir Malevich was of deep and abiding importance for both. As pioneering compatriots of a totally innovative painterly language, they exerted a profound influence on each other’s artistic development throughout their decades of close affinity, exchanging a multitude of letters and acting as models for each other.
Their initial friendship was forged when both were studying in the studio of the celebrated painter Fedor Rerberg in Moscow between 1903 and 1906, when each artist was at a similar stage of personal and professional development. Kliun began acting as a model for Malevich during this time, as John Milner notes: “Malevich often used as a model his close friend the painter Ivan Klyun [sic], whom he portrayed as a confident and independent country workman or villager. Klyun [sic] appears in a whole series of paintings, some including rural women giving the Old Believer’s sign of the cross, strongly suggesting that Malevich saw him as an Old Believer” (Exhibition catalogue, Malevich, London, 2014, p. 36). In turn, Kliun produced an intriguing depiction of his friend as a field worker, reaping buckwheat along with two women.
The present lot as illustrated in the Catalogue Raisonné
Notes on symbols:
* Indicates 5% Import Duty Charge applies.
Ω Indicates 20% Import Duty Charge applies.
§ Indicates Artist's Resale Right applies.
† Indicates Standard VAT scheme applies, and the rate of 20% VAT will be charged on both hammer price and premium.