Lot 34: f - Pavel Filonov, 1883-1941 , Untitled Composition mixed media on paper

mixed media on paper

21.9 by 26.5cm., 8½ by 10½in.

Evdokia Nikolaievna Glebova, the artist's sister
Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne
Edelman Arts, New York

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, USA
The unmistakable kaleidoscopic quality of Filonov's Analytical vision places his work aside from that of his avant-garde contemporaries, Ivan Kliun, Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. Filonov was famously reticent to explain the content of his compositions and purposefully left his paintings untitled, explaining that "an unprecedented form - that which is being invented - is totally assimilated into the painting. But sometimes these potentials do not allow for a [...] precise, exhaustive and true title". It was this desire to capture not just the object but its mechanism and movement too which drew him to view his compositions as continuously evolving and also renewing, therefore evading classification. With its strong diagonals, the offered work recalls the cross-section of a shattered rock and is representative of Filonov's artistic analysis of the history of the Earth, a series of studies which led up to Formula of the Universe from 1920-28. The delicate use of colour and fine line is typical of the artist's work from this period.