Keywords: Russian Art, Russian Avant-Garde, Modernism, Still Life, Fruit Bowl, Bottle, Pedestal Table, Red Ground, Geometric, Figurative Modernism, Paris School, École de Paris, Fauvism, Cubism, Cézanne, Early 20th Century

Authentometer™: A9*

Summary:
David Petrovich Shterenberg (Russian, 1881–1948). Signed oil painting on wood panel depicting a still life composed of a fruit bowl, black bottle, and white cloth arranged upon a round pedestal table. The objects are set against a bold red-orange ground with a contrasting blue drape at the upper left. Signed lower left, with the signature partially obscured by the frame.

The history and provenance of Russian avant-garde works from the early 20th century can be particularly complex. Decades of suppression under Stalin and the official promotion of Socialist Realism resulted in many earlier modernist, abstract, and Futurist works being privately retained, concealed, or stored away, sometimes leaving incomplete histories and limited documentation. A well-publicized exhibition of Russian works held in recent years became the subject of controversy concerning the authorship of certain works and subsequent litigation. The present work was not part of that exhibition.

Shterenberg was an important figure in Russian modernism whose artistic development was strongly influenced by his years in Paris. While there, he became acquainted with Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Marc Chagall. He studied with Fauvist painter Kees van Dongen and participated in avant-garde artistic and intellectual circles associated with the Café de la Rotonde.

Absorbing the innovations of the Parisian avant-garde, Shterenberg developed a distinctive visual language that distilled objects to their essential character without fully deconstructing them. In his compositions, space can appear simultaneously flat and dimensional, while color moves between observed reality and expressive invention. Forms are frequently sharpened and geometricized without progressing into complete Cubist fragmentation, and aspects of his work also reveal the structural influence of Paul Cézanne. These characteristics are brought together through disciplined and economical compositions that derive much of their visual strength from apparent simplicity.

Measurement: Visible: 28 x 19 1/4 in. (71.1 x 48.9 cm.), Frame: 36 x 27 1/2 in. (91.4 x 69.9 cm.) approx

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