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Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky, 1876-1956
Description
- Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky
- Wheat Reapers
- signed in Cyrillic and dated 23 l.l., also signed in Latin, titled in Cyrillic, inscribed 490 and dated 1923 on reverse
- oil on canvas
- 71.5 by 94cm., 28¼ by 37in.
Provenance
Leon Gildesgame, Mt. Kisco, New York
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
Storrs, The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Russian Avant-garde Art from the Schreiber Collection, January-March, 1986
New Rochelle, Castle Gallery, College of New Rochelle, The Russian Experiment: Master Works and Contemporary Works, September-October, 1990
Literature
Alla Rosenfeld, The Russian Experiment: Master Works and Contemporary Works, New York, 1990, pp. 8-9, illustrated
Catalogue Note
As a founding member of the Jack of Diamonds school, Konchalovsky's debt to artists such as Cézanne and Gaugin is well-documented. By the early twenties however, he produced a series of genre works, and it becomes possible to trace a shift from his early style. In his previous works an expressive image dominated over the overall conception, the background merely a contrasting backdrop for a figure, but gradually in his landscapes one sees a centre, all elements serving the strategic harmony of a whole. The colouring of the present work clearly owes much to Van Gogh's cornfields (fig1), while the composition is reminiscent of Barbizon genre scenes such as Jean-François Millet's The Gleaners (fig.2), in so far as it depicts ordinary peasant life without any drama. Russia's nearest equivalent of the Barbizon school, The Wanderers, was prominent in Konchalovsky's life since key members such as Serov and Surikov were frequent visitors in his childhood, the latter eventually becoming his father-in-law.
At this stage in his career Konchalovsky was enjoying great success; in 1923 his biography had been published and in 1924 he exhibited in New York, Venice and Moscow to critical acclaim. In the words of Anatoli Lunacharsky, "never before has Konchalovsky come across so simply, sincerely, joyfully or as such an accomplished master". He would later criticise Konchalovsky's characteristic joie de vivre as ideologically narrow-minded, yet for many it is this light positivism which makes his work so appealing: his delight in physical plenitude whether of an Italian lemon tree, a joiner's bench overflowing with tantalisingly tangible objects or this rich harvest. A sense of permanence and solidity permeates Konchalovsky's oeuvre -loose, thick brushwork here creates an impression of heaviness, bearing out his statement "I see and feel how the landscape has to be 'built''; the scene is charged with particular poignancy however, in view of the severe famine which struck his native Ukraine from 1921 to 1923.