Lot 49: Elena Andreevna Kiseleva (Russian, 1878-1974) Portrait de femme

Portrait de femme
signed, dated 'June 26, 1930' and inscribed in Cyrillic 'Belgrad' (upper right)
oil on canvas
88.3 x 106cm (34 3/4 x 41 3/4in).

Born in Voronezh and trained at the Academy of Art in St. Petersburg, Elena Kiseleva was one of the favourite students of Dmitrii Kardovskii and the legendary Ilia Repin. Her graduation painting Trinity Festival showing the colourful village festivities in the village near Voronezh won her the highest accolades from the artistic establishment, the art critics and the public. Kiseleva was the first female Russian artist who, upon graduation from the Academy in 1907, was sent to study abroad. She travelled widely throughout Italy and Germany, only briefly returning to her motherland in 1917-1920, and eventually settling in Belgrade with her second husband, the famous mathematician, Anton Bilimovich. Her beautiful works were highly praised by Ilia Repin, Adrian Prakhov, Sergei Makovskii and Leonid Andreev. She became known as a talented portrait painter and exhibited in Munich (1909), Rome (1911), and in numerous exhibitions in Russia (1910-1916) (Portrait of the artist's father, Portrait of painter Tkachenko, Portrait of Kornei Chukovskii, Portrait of poet Hofman.

The offered lot is an enchanting example of her signature style. "I am first and foremost a portrait painter in heart, wrote Elena Kiseleva in one of her letters, 'I always enjoyed painting magnificent and interesting women.' In the present painting a beautiful young woman is seated at an angle in a tall chair from which she gazes confidently and calmly. Everything about her and around her is in harmony, from the theatrical placement of her hands to the elegant silhouette of her black shawl which deliberately reveals her glorious neckline and bare shoulders. The regal monumentality of the figure and the sense of elegant repose are softened by the nervous fringe of the coral over-sized shawl on the back of the chair which casts a warm rosy glow onto the bare skin of the sitter.

The colourful Serbian national costumes, folklore tradition and the village festival of her new home in Yugoslavia continued to inspire the talented artist and are depicted in such works as Market at Kotora, Village fair in Tipcheder, Woman from Dalmatia, Young girl from Chernogoria. Isolated from the Russian artistic community and settling in Belgrad in 1921, Kiseleva continued to paint but her works were rarely exhibited after the 1920s. Ilia Repin, saddened by the absence of Kiseleva's works from the exhibitions in Russia, wrote to her: 'It cannot be true that you gave up painting. I could never believe that. You are too talented to do that. I do hope that you will make us happy by painting new works.'

The largest collection of Kiseleva's painting is at the Regional Fine Art Museum in Voronezh, which organised several retrospective exhibitions of the artist in the last thirty years (1974, 1980, 2008). Since 1974, the museum in Voronezh dedicated a separate gallery to Elena Kiseleva and continues to acquire her work. The beautiful paintings of this accomplished artist are being re-discovered today and her artistic legacy is yet to be appreciated fully.

We would like to thank Mr. Vladimir Dobromirov, Director of the Regional I.Kramskoi Fine Art Museum in Voronezh, for his assistance in cataloguing this lot and for providing images of paintings from the museum collection.