Petr Petrovich Konchalovsky

Acquired directly from the artist's family by the present owner in the 1990s

K. V. Frolova (ed.), Konchalovsky. Khudozhestvennoe nasledie, Moscow, 1964, pp. 95 listed under works for 1910.

Structural Condition The canvas, which is inscribed on the reverse, is unlined and the turnover and tacking edges have been strengthened with a thin strip-lining. Paint surface The paint surface has a rather uneven and glossy varnish layer and would benefit from a more even surface coating. No retouchings are visible under ultra-violet light. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition and the only work that might be considered is revarnishing.
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This vivid still life dating from 1908-1910 reflects the pivotal moment in Konchalovsky's artistic career when he moved away from his youthful Impressionistic style towards Fauvism. Konchalovsky arrived in Paris in 1907, only two years after Matisse, Derain, Braque and Vlaminck made their first public impact at the Salon d'Automne in 1905 and earned the name 'fauves' or 'wild beasts'. 'A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public!' the critic Camille Mauclair famously declared, but Konchalovsky and his contemporaries eagerly maintained this reaction against the mild-mannered lyricism of the previous generation. The concentration of colour and flowing contours which are used to explosive effect in Flowers on a Blue Ground appear in works by many of his contemporaries, including those of Alexei Jawlensky (fig.1) and Gabriele Münter.  'It was an interesting, joyful period', Münter later recalled, 'After a short time of torment there was a great leap forward  - from a more or less impressionistic copying of nature to a feeling for content, abstraction and the communication of essences.'

Konchalovsky had studied at Paris' Julien Academy from 1896-98, but the 'great leap forward' in his painting dates from this formative Paris period (1907-16). As he recalls in his memoirs, it was then that 'my career as an artist began and I formed the exploratory desires and views on art to which I am true to this day'.  Konchalovsky's interest in Fauve techniques was one important stimulation behind this creative period and acquaintance with Ilya Mashkov a second. The two artists met in 1907, when, according to Mashkov, 'the similarity of our views on art quickly drew us together'. Konchalovsky's correspondence of 1908-9 reveals Mashkov's invaluable role as a confidant and sounding board for the deep impression that van Gogh, Cézanne and 'other liberators of our time' had made on him, but Mashkov's presence can also be felt in Koncholovsky's emerging style. As Alexander Benois wrote in the 1916 edition of Rech', Konchalovsky was temperamentally the more cerebral of the two, yet the influence of the 'spontaneous joy'  that characterised Mashkov's work is wonderfully evident in this stunning early work.