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116
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Alexis GRITCHENKO (Krolevets 1883 – Vence 1977)
See original version (French)
116
-
Alexis GRITCHENKO (Krolevets 1883 – Vence 1977)
See original version (French)
Estimate €6,000 - €8,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Alexis GRITCHENKO (Krolevets 1883 – Vence 1977)
Landscape of Santa Clara
Painted in 1956
Oil on panel
54 x 73 cm
Signed and dated lower left ‘Gritchenko 56’
On the reverse of the panel, the artist’s handwritten label bearing the title ‘Santa Clara’
Provenance: Marcelle T. Collection, Paris
Subsequently passed down through the family
Alexis Gritchenko was a Ukrainian painter, watercolourist, writer and art critic associated with the School of Paris. He was born in Krolevets, then part of the Russian Empire. He studied from 1905 to 1912 at the universities of Saint Petersburg, Kyiv and Moscow. He studied painting and drawing in the studio of S.I. Svetoslavski from 1906 to 1908, in that of K.F. Iouon and I. Dudin from 1909 to 1910, and under P.P. Konchalovsky and I.I. Mashkov from 1911 to 1912 in Moscow. He also worked in V.I. Tatlin’s studio and studied Sergei Shchukin’s collection, which included works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso, amongst others.
In 1911, Alexis Gritchenko visited Paris and the Louvre, and met the painters André Lhote, Alexander Archipenko and Henri Le Fauconnier whilst in the French capital.
He embarked on a journey to Italy and returned to Moscow, where he developed an avant-garde theory which he called ‘Tsvetodinamos’ (Colour-Movement), the fundamentals of which centred on the importance of masses of colour that define and divide space. Alexis Gritchenko’s theory became part of the diverse range of Moscow avant-garde movements, including the primitivism of Alexander Shevchenko, Natalia Goncharova and Michel Larionov; the Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich; and Constructivism.
Alexis Gritchenko became a teacher at a state-run open studio in 1918, where he taught the essence of the theory alongside Alexandre Chevtchenko.
Rejecting the Bolshevik dictatorship, he decided to head west, travelling first to Kyiv and then, via Sevastopol, to Constantinople, where he remained for two years. During those two years in Constantinople, he produced watercolour scenes of everyday life and landscapes. He travelled to Greece in 1921, arrived on French soil in Marseille in the autumn of 1921, and finally made his way to Paris.
In Paris, he was particularly active on the art scene. He exhibited at the Salon d’Automne from 1921 to 1945, at the Salon des Tuileries from 1928 to 1948, and took part in numerous exhibitions organised by renowned galleries in France and abroad, notably at the Galerie Dominique, the Bing Gallery, the Katia Granoff Gallery, the Druet Gallery, the Galerie de l’Élysée, the Weill Gallery and the Bernheim Jeune Gallery. The painter was also supported by the art dealers Paul Guillaume and Léopold Zborowski.
Gritchenko’s works are now held in the collections of museums such as the MoMA in New York, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.
E.V
Born in the Ottoman Empire into a family of six children, Marcelle T. lived in Istanbul until 1925.
Coming from a Francophile family, she studied at Notre-Dame de Sion, but also at the German School, as the French school had been forced to close during the First World War.
Her father, a great lover of painting, introduced her to the art and likely arranged for her to meet Alexis Gritchenko whilst he was staying in Istanbul from 1919 to 1921.
Marcelle T. moved to Paris in 1925 with her husband, where she lived until her death.
Her father, who had been appointed to a post in France, also settled in Paris in 1927 and continued to share his passion for painting with his daughter.
They reconnected with Alexis Gritchenko, who was now living in France, and Marcelle T. acquired several of his paintings.
These paintings have remained in the family ever since; her grandson discovered them whilst still a child during his regular visits to his grandmother’s home.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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