Lot 35: f - Pavel Filonov, 1883-1941 , Untitled Composition watercolour and mixed media on paper

watercolour and mixed media on paper

13 by 17.5cm., 5 1/4 by 6 3/4 in.

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

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, USA
Visually and theoretically, Filonov's art is very close to the process of anatomy, and he encouraged his students to dissect their object of study "as if with a scalpel". Filonov was fascinated by the anatomical atlases of 19υth century military surgeon, Nikolai Pirogov and, in particular, the process of decomposition. In a rather morbid anecdote, the artist records in his diary the interest with which he examined the body of one of his own students, Vasily Kuptsov. Such 'necrophilia' was frowned upon by the authorities, which were quick to censure his early works depicting cadavers believing them to transgress the limits of decency. Many of Filonov's works from the 1920s focus on the subject of organic transmutations, and the interconnections within the entire system of evolution, a materialist attitude he shared with many of his contemporaries in the artistic and scientific spheres. His compositions experiment with the unexpected results of physiological metamorphosis and, typically, the offered lot explores these undefined, malleable states between animal and mineral components as Filonov attempts to 'play God' in his pictorial cross-breeding.