Lot 171B email save

LARIONOV RUSSIAN ART CUBISM RAYONISM

LARIONOV, Mikhail (1881-1964). Cubistic still life.

1907. Watercolor wash drawing on paper. (180 x 250 mm). Initialed lower left, and dated lower right; signed "Larionov" and initialed on reverse. Provenance: bears the stamp of "Atelier M. Larionov" on the verso, affixed by Larionov's second wife, Alexandra Tomilina. cubist inspired still-life with newspaper, grapes, and glasses. We are grateful to Dr. Anthony Parton for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot. Larionov was a founding member of two important Russian artistic groups: Jack of Diamonds (1909-1911) and the more radical Donkey's Tail (1912-1913). He is credited with giving names to both groups. His first solo show was for one day in Moscow in 1911. In 1913 he created Rayonism, which is largely regarded as the first expression of near-abstract art in Russia. In 1915 he left Russia and worked with Sergei Diaghilev in Paris on the productions of the Ballet Russes. An iconoclast till the end, Larionov's life and work entailed both an artistic devotion for and an irreverence towards any and all received notions of what ot meant to be an artist.