AN IMPORTANT GROUPING OF EIGHT ARTWORKS BY IVAN KUDRYASHOV (RUSSIAN 1896-1972), ALONG WITH LETTERS AND PERSONAL EFFECTS

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Important Fine & Decorative Art Auction

By Shapiro Auctions

Sep 17, 2016 - Sep 18, 2016

Set Reminder 2016-09-17 10:00:00 2016-09-18 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Important Fine & Decorative Art Auction https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/shapiro/important-fine-decorative-art-auction-1714
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• Lot Description
  AN IMPORTANT GROUPING OF EIGHT ARTWORKS BY IVAN KUDRYASHOV (RUSSIAN 1896-1972), ALONG WITH LETTERS AND PERSONAL EFFECTS
  ,
  
  PROVENANCE
  Descendant of the artist, the nephew of the artist`s wife
  Acquired from the above by the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
  Private collection
  
  EXPERTISE
  Accompanied by an expertise from the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow on April 27, 2002, as well as an expert statement issued by Dmitriy Sarabyanov on June 3, 2002
  
  a rare and important collection of artworks, including artist`s notes, letters, biographical materials, photographs, various applications and personal documents. Comprising:
  
  a) Eight artworks, each watercolor and pencil on paper:
  
  Composition No 1 with collage
  25 x 20 cm (9 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.)
  
  Composition No 2
  19.6 x 25 cm (7 3/4 x 9 7/8 in.)
  
  Composition No 3, 1960
  20 x 25 cm (7 7/8 x 9 7/8 in.), signed and dated on verso
  
  Composition No 4
  18 x 23 cm (7 1/8 x 9 in.), signed in pencil lower right
  
  Composition No 5, 1966
  20 x 25 cm (7 7/8 x 9 7/8 in.),
  signed and dated in pencil lower left
  
  Composition No 6
  20.2 x 24.8 cm (8 x 9 3/4 in.)
  
  Composition No 7
  19.8 x 25 cm (7 3/4 x 9 7/8 in.)
  
  Composition No 8, double-sided
  14 x 19.3 cm (5 1/2 x 7 5/8 in.)
  
  b) Six hand-written versions of artist`s autobiography, each was a part of his second application for enrollment into the Moscow Artists Union, asking to reconsider his expulsion. Each on a separate sheet
  
  c) Seven pages of Kudryashov`s writings on the theories and ideas of his own artistic approach, describing the connection of abstract art to the ideology of communism (supposedly, containing false statements aiming to please the Committee of the Moscow Artists Union)
  
  d) Four personal letters, including the ones to and from Kudriashov`s beloved wife Nadezhda Timofeyeva, and from his fellow artist friend
  
  e) Three hand-written claims to reconsider Kudryashsov`s expulsion from the Moscow Artists Union
  
  f) Fifteen photographic portraits of the artist (largest: 17 x 11.5 cm, smallest: 6 x 4 cm), two group photographs with the artist and a small printed portrait with Kudryashov`s signature
  
  g) Five forms issued by the government, including unemployment notice, draft notice of 1941 and duty assignment
  
  h) Ten documents, including student`s record book, several paybooks and various member`s IDs
  
  i) One original and one facsimile exhibition catalog
  
  LOT NOTES
  Ivan Kudryashov was one of the prominent artists of the younger generation of Russian Soviet avant-garde. His apprentice started in the studio of Pavel Kuznetsov, who made a great impact on Kudryashov`s approach to the abstract painting. His other influential teacher was Kazimir Malevich, under who`s tuition Ivan turned up in GSKhM right after the Revolution, along with fellow students Ivan Kliun, Naum Gabo and Anoine Pevsner. The artist`s style of painting developed through his great interest in cubism in 1910s, turning into a big passion for suprematism. Most of his artworks, including the ones from the present lot, reflect Kudryashov`s devotion to the attempts of understanding and expression of the Space. He often turned to the innovative theories of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky for an inspiration in his complex search for the new media of depicting the cosmos. After offering a myriad of different and utterly outstanding interpretations of the common, Kudryashov started to face the State`s disapproval. He struggled with employment through the Artists Union, and therefore a lack of painting supplies. Ivan Kudryashov kept submitting numerous letters explaining the absence of anti-communist ideas in his works. He even formulated certain false theories explaining abstract art as a politically correct form of painting (some of Kudryashov`s notes on the subject are a part of the present lot). Even though the artist was eventually forced to sign an official renouncement of his own artistic experiments and any proclamations, he never stopped to nourish the attempts of depicting the Space. At the end of his life Ivan Kudryashov re-interpreted in color a fair amount of his early drawings from the 1920s.
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