Alexander Konstantinovich Bogomazov

New York, Brooklyn Museum, Open House: Working in Brooklyn, April - August 2004, p. 185, illustrated in color

San Francisco, John Berggruen Gallery, Selected Works, November - December 2009

The present painting is thought to be one of only two oils the artist created between 1917 and 1925 and is one of those rare works of Ukrainian and Russian art that documents the hardships the people faced in the immediate post-revolutionary period and the ensuing civil war. The situation was particularly accute in Kiev which was caught up in various conflicts, occupied by the Germans and controlled by a series of short-lived independent Ukrainian governments until it was taken by the Red Army in 1921.

Like its sister painting Funeral (State Museum of Ukrainian Art), which is similar in size and also dates to 1920-1921, Cart was almost certainly painted as a reaction to the death of his father-in-law, Vitold Monastyrsky in 1920. The same year, the artist contracted tuberculosis whilst working on agitprop, and the present work is therefore of considerable biographical importance. With his health deteriorating, Bogomazov was for a time forced to give up easel painting altogether until embarking on his unfinished triptych, Sawyers in 1925.

Stylistically, Cart is very different from Bogomazov’s work both immediately before and after this period. Using broad brushstrokes and strong colours, it is as if the artist had absorbed the lessons of German Expressionism to convey the scene.

We would like to thank James Butterwick for providing additional cataloguing information.