Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov

M.I.Solovieva, Moscow
V.A.Solovieva, Moscow

Moscow, IX Exhibition of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, 1927, no.107

 

I.S.Bolotina, Il'ya Mashkov, Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1977, p.334, no.396 listed

The canvas has been lined. The paint surface shows craquelure throughout and is particularly noticeable in the area of the window. There are frame abrasions along the edges, with some minor associated paint loss. The signature and date are partially lost. There is a small fleck of paint loss below the female sitter's shoe. Inspection under UV light reveals retouching throughout, in particular to the female sitter's head and her gown. Held in a gold-painted wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Opened on 16 June 1925 as a sanatorium for children on the initiative of Zinovy Soloviev, the Chairman of the Russian Red Cross, Artek embodied all the ideals of the young socialist state and soon became the most famous pioneer camp in the Soviet Union. Clara Zetkin visited the camp in the summer of 1925, and would later write: ‘Do you want to see free and happy children? Then visit the summer camp organised by the Red Cross in Artek’. Ilya Mashkov’s Zinovy Petrovich Soloviev with Pioneer, now at the Chelyabinsk State Art Museum (fig.1) and dating from the same year as the present work, shares Zetkin’s utopian view of Artek. It shows the founder of the camp gazing pensively into the distance, whilst his hand rests on the shoulder of the youngest pioneer who glances at the beholder cheerfully. In contrast, the present work shows Soloviev and his wife in a more intimate and informal setting in their summer lodging at Artek. Mashkov portrays the protagonists in morning gowns and immersed in their own thoughts, as he shares with the beholder an insight into the private lives of his friends.

Both works are part of a larger series of works that Mashkov painted on the theme of Soviet health institutions in the Crimea. In 1925, the former Jack of Diamonds member had joined the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR), who declared that art depicting the new Soviet reality should be easily accessible and therefore realist in style, and encouraged artists to document the life of workers and soldiers by visiting factories and barracks. In his Crimean works, Mashkov found a theme which both corresponded to the demands of the AKhRR as well as his own artistic ambitions. He exhibited both the present work and Zinovy Petrovich Soloviev with Pioneers at the IX AKhRR exhibition in 1927 alongside other paintings from his Crimean series.