NATALIA KOROBOVA (UKRAINIAN B. 1949)
Noon, 1970
oil on canvas
138 x 179.5 cm (54 3/8 x 70 5/8 in.)
signed and dated lower right

PROVENANCE
Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady Collection

EXHIBITED
New York, Ukrainian Institute of America, Ukrainian Socialist Realism: The Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady Collection, September 14-October 7, 2012 (illustrated on cover and p. 33 of the exhibition catalogue); Faces of Ukraine, 1950-1980: Highlights of the Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady Collection, June 5-July 3, 2014

LITERATURE
Jurii Maniichuk, Realism and Socialist Realism in Ukrainian Painting of the Soviet Era (Kiev: LK Maker, 1998), p.162 (illustrated)

LOT NOTES
Natalia Vladimirovna Korobova is a Ukrainian artist whose repertoire ranges from portraiture and still life to landscape and genre painting. Korobova began exhibiting in 1969, the same year she graduated from the Taras Shevchenko Kiev Art School. Her father, artist Vladimir Korobov (b. 1924), proved a strong influence on her work, though hers is decidedly more symbolic and dreamlike.
Noon, reminiscent of Manet's Luncheon on the Grass, depicts a recognisable and feminized space. Korobova treats the painting surface in a manner akin to that of the Post Impressionists, with rough rectangular strokes and vivid, summery pinks, fuschias, and blues. Like the still life within - complete with workers' staples: boiled eggs, bread, milk, potatoes, onion - the figures are positioned to include the viewer in the scene.

The following lots come from the collection of the Ukrainian-born American lawyer Jurii Maniichuk (1955-2009), who amassed nearly 150 large-scale pieces of Ukrainian Socialist Realism of the 1950s-1980s. Maniichuk acquired these paintings (primarily from working artists or their heirs) while working in Kiev as a legal consultant for the World Bank in the 1990s, and brought them to the U.S. in 1999. With UkraineÕs newfound independence from the USSR in 1991, Socialist Realism fell out of favor with most collectors and curators. Recognizing their historical value and aesthetic appeal, Maniichuk made it his preeminent goal was to preserve the paintings for future study and appreciation. As part of that effort, his widow, Rose Brady, now the collectionÕs owner, lent nearly half of the collection long-term to the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York (2012-2018). Select works have also been featured at the Brooklyn Museum (Russian Modern, 2011-2016), at East West Fine Art (formerly known as Gallery on Fifth) in Naples, Florida (We the People. Everyday Life in Post-Soviet Union and modern-day Southwest Florida, November 29-December 20, 2014; Rescued from the Flames, Soviet Era Social Realist Paintings from the Collection of Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady, December 2013-January 2014), and at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida (Ukraine: The Maniichuk-Brady Collection of Socialist Realist Art, August 27-December 4, 2015).

This lot is being sold without reserve.