Alexander Arkadievich Labas

The family of the artist

The canvas is original. There is a layer of surface dirt and the varnish has discoloured. Craquleure is visible throughout the paint layer. The flower bed in the centre of the lower edge appears to have been overpainted. There are possible old canvas tears visible on the reverse. Examination under UV light reveals scattered areas of minor restoration and minor repaired canvas tears, such as in the faces of the female dancer and the seated male figure on the far right. The retouching of the flower bed is visible under UV as well as to the naked eye. Held in stained wood frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Jewish Wedding is one of a small number of genre scenes that Alexander Labas painted following a trip in 1937 to the Jewish Autonomous Region, which had been created in 1934 as part of Stalin’s Nationalities Policy and was accompanied by an extensive propaganda campaign. Labas was sent in an official capacity to document the happy life of the recent settlers.

Born into a secular Jewish family in Smolensk, Labas never explicitly identified as a Jewish artist nor was he particularly drawn to Jewish themes. As Natalia Semenova points out in her biography of the artist, the only obviously ‘Jewish’ element in the present work is the Yiddish of the sign for ‘Club’ above the door on the right (Labas, Moscow, 2013, p.138). Labas was more inspired by the vast unspoilt landscapes of the Russian Far East. The young dancers in the foreground add an autographical element to the picture as they bear a clear resemblance to the artist and his wife.