Ignaty Nivinsky

The canvas has been striplined. There are a few very minor flecks of paint loss to the top of the wall in the lower half of the canvas and a minor fleck of paint loss below the signature. There is a layer of light surface dirt and unobtrusive lines of craquelure. UV light reveals no apparent signs of retouching. Held in a gold painted wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Nivinsky made two important trips to the Crimea in 1916 and 1917, where he developed an individual style much more rapidly and made his name with his famous Gurzuf series of etchings.  As Paul Ettinger writes in the introduction to his 1925 exhibition catalogue, even his black and white works conveyed an extraordinary sense of liveliness: 'One is distinctly aware of this new 'major key' in his work - his initial enthusiasm and the joy of an accomplished artist who confronts nature and all its wonders for the first time, and whole-heartedly plunges into its colourful kaleidoscope' (Exhibition catalogue, Oforty Ign.Nivinskogo, Moscow: Gosudarstvenny muzei izyashchnykh iskusstv, 1925, p.10).

In terms of subject matter, there is stark contrast between his earlier Italian works and his Crimean series. For the first time, Nivinsky moved away from purely architectural motifs, and turned his attention to figures, landscapes and even genre scenes - a rare departure at the time. The later works from his Gurzuf series' concntrate solely on landscape.. 

Nivinsky became interested in etching in his early thirties, but he had originally trained as a painter in the Stroganov Institute and his oils were formerly in the collection of the Nivinsky Creative-Experimental Art Studios. His known etchings of 1917 include views of the sea, beach, mountains, A Lebanese Cedar, Pines. and, together with the compositions of fellow Soyuz artists such as Sergei Vinogradov, make up a vibrant body of work depicting pre-Revolutionary Crimea.