Important European Collection of Russian Art, plus Other Properties
30 May 2020
§ 17. ANNENKOV, GEORGES (1889–1974)
Standing Nude from the Back, signed.
Gouache and watercolour on paper, 62.5 by 46.5 cm.
50,000–90,000 GBP
Provenance: Important private collection, Europe.
Exhibited: La Russie inconnue, Salle d'exposition du Quai Antoine Ier, Monaco, 25 June–27 August 2015.
Literature: X. Muratova, Neizvestnaia Rossiia. Russkoe iskusstvo pervoi poloviny XX veka, Milan, Silvana Editoriale, 2015, p. 381, No. 327, illustrated.
The gouache painting Nude in the Studio is typical of the works that Georges Annenkov produced in the second half of the 1920s and early 1930s. During that period, a tense, sometimes dissonant combination of precise, hard drawing lines with an indeterminate colour wash and textured pictorial planes comes to be his instantly recognisable personal technique.
This can be clearly seen in the work presented, where the sharply delineated graphic outlines of the female figure, table, jug and other objects overlap with decorative splashes of colour that run into each other. The deliberate discrepancies between the boundaries where one colour meets another, the parts left unpainted and the graphic outlines of the objects depicted create a game that becomes a kind of artistic principle underlying Annenkov’s works. The large easel gouaches and paintings executed in this style were prized by his contemporaries and are notably represented today in the Centre Pompidou collection.
The present lot as illustrated in X. Muratova, Neizvestnaia Rossiia. Russkoe iskusstvo pervoi poloviny XX veka, Milan, Silvana Editoriale, 2015, p. 381, No. 327.
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.