LÉON TUTUNDJIAN | LA GRENADE ÉCLATÉE

UK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Lot Closed

November 12, 02:11 PM GMT

Estimate

25,000 - 35,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from a Private Collection, London

LÉON TUTUNDJIAN

Armenian, 1905 - 1968

LA GRENADE ÉCLATÉE

signed TUTUNDJIAN lower right

oil on canvas

92 by 60cm., 36 by 23½in.

framed: 94.5 by 62cm., 37 by 24½in.

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Please note that La Grenade eclatée is a reworked composition executed circa 1959 for the exhibition 100 peintres et le Pétrole at the Musée Palais Galliéra, Paris (see Gladys C. Fabre, Tutundjian, 1994, no. 130). The original composition featured an oil refinery in the upper left corner, some further industrial buildings towards the centre, and oil pipelines running vertically through the centre of the composition. Faint pentimenti of the refinery and the pipelines are visible in the painting now, and infra-red light reveals the old composition under the reworked version, which now features the apple and pomegranate so typical of Tutundjian's surrealist works. Further vegetation and stones were added by the artist to the foreground. It is possible that Tutundjian was not satisfied with the initial composition or found it too literal and decided to repaint the work shortly after its conception. There are additional literature and exhibition references for this work:

Sale: Sotheby's London, 26 October 1994, lot 324

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Gladys C. Fabre, Tutundjian, Paris, 1994, no. 130, illustrated with a black and white photograph from the Tutundjian photographic archive

Paris, Musée Palais Galliéra, 100 peintres et le Pétrole, 1959

The present work dates from Tutundjian's Surrealist period, when, inspired by the works of René Magritte and Salvador Dalí, the artist developed his own visual metaphors often imbued with subtle Indian and Persian influences. Although never becoming a formal member of the Surrealist group, he was closely associated with André Breton and exhibited with the Surrealists throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

In 1923 Tutundjian emigrated to Paris where he befriended his fellow Armenian painter Ervand Kochar, who introduced him to Miró, Picasso, Mondrian and Jacques Villon. In 1930 he co-founded the Art Concret movement which espoused a non-figurative style.