Description
RUSSIAN, 1925 - 1930
POOR PEOPLE
POOR PEOPLE
measurements
92 by 60 1/2 in.
alternate measurements
233.7 by 153.7 cm
oil on canvas
PROVENANCE
St. Petersburg, Mr. Boris Gurvich, Pavel Filonov's student, circa 1940s
Moscow, Ms. Alisa Poret, Pavel Filonov's Student, circa 1960s
Novosibirsk, Mr. Mikhail Makarenko, circa 1967
Sale: Sotheby's, London, March 29th, 1973, lot 83, illustrated
Sale: Hotel Drouot, Paris, May 1990, p. 12, illustrated
EXHIBITED
Novosibirsk, Akademgorodok, November, 1967, The 50th Anniversary of Soviet Power
LITERATURE
Vechernii Novosibirsk, [Evening Novosibirsk], November 29, 1967, From the Reserves of the State Russian Museum
Sotheby's, London, March 29th, 1973, lot 83, illustrated, pp. 101-102
A. Bird, A History of Russian Art, London, G. K. Hall & Co., 1987, p.240, illustrated
Hotel Drouot, Paris, May 1990, p. 12, illustrated
NOTE
Poor People is a unique and masterful collaboration of Pavel Filonov and Alisa Poret. It is without doubt one of the most historically significant and powerful works ever to be offered at auction.
Present scholarship on Poor People has revealed a number of fundamental discrepancies. Beginning in the late twenties, various sources attribute this painting to Pavel Filonov, to Pavel Filonov's student Alisa Poret, to student Pavel Kondratiev and or generally to Filonov's studio. What is absolutely certain is that this painting dates to the 1920's and is irrefutably linked to Filonov's studio, made evident by a number of extremely compelling factors. Firstly, there is a period photograph of Filonov's student Pavel Kondratiev standing in front of the offered work (fig.2). Secondly, there is a preparatory sketch of the composition by Poret in the collection of Lobanov-Rostovsky (fig. 1). However, in examining Alisa Poret's oeuvre, it is hard to imagine that the finished painting, the present lot, could ever be fully attributed to her hand. The closest Poret has ever come to fully embracing the teachings of Filonov was during her collaborative effort on the illustrations for the Finnish epic Kalevala published in 1933 (fig.3). Poor People was specifically commissioned by the Leningrad Press House in 1927. The project proved a testament to Filonov's dedication as a teacher. It is documented that Filonov personally helped many of his students to finish their work, sacrificing his own time and effort for the good of the Collective's success. The quality, mastery, and pictorial complexity of the present painting clearly suggests Filonov's involvement.
Orphaned at thirteen, Filonov moved to St. Petersburg to stay with his sister. It was only after his fourth attempt to attend the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, that Filonov was finally accepted in 1908, "solely for his knowledge of the human anatomy" (Records of the Imperial Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg, 1910). Two years later, Filonov was expelled from the school due to his inability to conform to the academy's conservative standards of painting. Isaac Brodsky recalled "[Filonov's] work was remarkable. But for an academic institution -- unacceptable. He remained uninfluenced by any of his teachers" (Kartinnaya Galereya Sibirskogo Otdeleniya Akademii Nauk, Pervaya Personal'naya Vystavka, Pavel Filonov, 1888-1941, Catalogue, Novosibirsk, Akademgorodok, 1967, p. 6) Thus, in the end, Filonov was expelled for what was then called "corrupting his fellow students with his work" (according to the notes of the Academy's director Vladimir Alexandrovich Beklemishev)( Kartinnaya Galereya Sibirskogo Otdeleniya Academii Nauk, p. 6).
In his letter to the professorial council, Filonov proclaimed in his defense: " I am expelled, for the sole reason, that I wholeheartedly, with great passion and determination strove to achieve a precise depiction of each individual form, sacrificing the beauty of the study and its color for the purpose of an absolute closeness to nature..." (Kartinnaya Galereya Sibirskogo Otdeleniya Avademii Nauk, 1967, pp. 6-7). Filonov would have to continue to defend his work from that day forth. No other artist of the Russian avant-garde would be misunderstood by so many and subjected to consistent persecution during his lifetime. Filonov never experienced proper acknowledgement of his genius or acceptance. Despite this, his legacy would later be immortalized not only through his own work, but through that of his students.
In 1925 Pavel Nikolaevich was provided with space at the Academy of Arts to teach. Before long, his circle of students grew exponentially. Filonov paid close attention to each student's progress, and in turn the students were drawn to Filonov's unique approach to depicting nature. It was at this time that the art collective, Masters of Analytical Art, came into being. Tatiana Nikolaevna Gelebova, a leading student in the collective, described her first visit to Filonov's studio, of 'the covered walls with students' work resembling that of their teacher's own method, everyone seemed to be engulfed in the meticulous process" (Glebova, Memories of Filonov, p.21). What drew Glebova and others to Filonov was what she called "the plasticity and movement of his depicted forms on canvas, the achievement of a unity between time and space, the depth and richness of color. [Filonov's] work not only produced an effect on the external visually, but also on the internal, seeming to be akin with music..." (Glebova, Memories of Filonov, p.21).
1927 marked a defining moment for the Masters of Analytical Art. Nikolai Pavlovich Baskakov, director of the Leningrad Press House [Dom Pechati], provided Filonov and his students two commissions: to decorate the hall of the building, a mansion near the Fontanka River, and design the costumes and sets for a production of Nikolai Gogol's The Inspector-General. For the first commission, large paintings by the collective would line the main hall: each was entitled with names such as "The Hung", "Political Caricature", "Heads" and "Invalids of War". According to Tatiana Glebova, each student was to create a preliminary drawing which would be approved by Filonov, before he or she would begin working on the canvas. The collective had only four months to complete this Herculean task.
In Glebova's memoirs, the artist recalls having to share a single piece of canvas with friend Alisa Poret (Glebova, p.44) (see fig. 5). Each envisioning their individual compositions, Glebova worked on Prison, presently located in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (see fig. 4) and Poret depicted the subject of the Poor, the present lot. The study for Poret's canvas is currently in the Lobanov-Rostovsky collection (see fig. 1),an undeniable sketch for the present painting. Glebova's description of the conditions under which she and Poret worked indicate that Filonov was deeply involved in the execution of the present work. For example, Filonov repeatedly helped the Yurii Krzhanovsky with his work: "... [Filonov] always painted on the canvas of those students who were falling behind..." (Glebova, p.45). Similarly, "Pavel Nikolayevich did not sleep several nights before finishing the work [of Arsenii Fedorov], tiresomely helping on the canvas ...In this way, having no sympathy for himself, he worked on everyone's canvases of those who were struggling, and there were many. He never went home, worked during the night almost until morning, and was the first one to wake up" (Glebova, 45).
While working on the project, Alisa Poret unexpectedly lost her husband, and after his death, she continued to come to paint "fusing each shed tear with her palette" (Glebova, 45). Due to Poret's tragic circumstances and because of Filonov's methodology, it is certain that Filonov assisted in the completion of Poor People, in the same way he worked on Khrianovsky's composition, abovementioned in Glebova's memoirs. This work of visceral sorrow, with its dynamic surface and haunting figures pulsates with stillness and a paralyzing energy. Filonov's theory of Analytical Art is a type of scientific study of the natural world. Sdelanost' or madeness is a methodical dissection of form, through fragmentation of color. Each painting is an organism "blooming" or growing from a single cell (a fractured brushstroke). One has to build upon this to get a true sense of the essence of form of all its attributes, not only those visible to the human eye. Glebova later explained the fate of the present painting: "...When the Press House moved to another and smaller premises, the works were given back to the artists. We divided our picture in as much as A. Poret moved to Moscow and I stayed in Leningrad. I. Glebova 14 January 1982" (Thyssen- Bornomiezen, p. 123).
The collective's finished works were first shown on April 17, 1927 (see fig. 6) to mixed reviews in the press. One writer called the group a "collective of political grotesque with a focus on pathological anatomy" (Krasnaya Gazeta, Evening Edition, Shkola Filonova, May 5th, 1927, p 11). The article continued "...in these horrific paintings, or obsessive hallucinations there appear to be symptoms of fanatical love for painting and parallel to this vulnerable creative temperament, there are instances of thoughtful relation to the compositional equations..." At the time, the authorship of every work was kept from the public, "as the Filonovites are not looking for individual fame and are a collective..." (Krasnaya Gazeta, Evening Edition, Shkola Filonova, May 5th, 1927, p 11). Another journalist was equally derisive as he described the scene: "along the walls of the large hall are hanging these large canvases...there is a depiction of a man, whose one shoe is tied, and the other is taken off with the skin of his foot, so each of the joints is visible together with its veins and arteries...This is a true visual tragedy! And it is also of great expense. It is said that this spectacle cost the Press House several thousand!..." (Krasnaya Gazeta, Vecharnii Vypusk, Dom Pechati, April, 15th, 1927, p.8).
An article in the Krasnaya Ponarama was more positive about the works in the Press House: "...one truly feels the unity of the method, together with the unified creative freedom and unified spirit of the ideological path. The symbiosis of the work gives the paintings a powerful involvement, that we have not experienced at any other exhibition up until this point... this exhibition is a long chain of the revolutionary reality with all its bright and tinted sides... it touches upon the deep-rooted questions of contemporary life, and exemplifies them in such forms that astonish with their new and raw approach..." (Krasnoya Panorama, Vistavka Filonovtsev v Dome Pechati, Issue No. 24, June 10, 1927, p.14). When Vladimir Mayakovsky recited his poetry at the Press House, Poor People was one of these prophetic canvases which led Mayakovsky to exclaim while pointing at the walls: "... these pictures are the paintings of the present and the future!" (Dmitrochenko, Vospominaniya [Memoirs]. Manuscript Department, Russian State Museum, fund 156, case 84, p. 6).
The present work is a unique and most precise articulation of Pavel Filonov's theories ever to be offered at auction. The horrifying subject matter of total desolation and destitution comes across through the tormented faces of the characters. As the figures' form is fragmented, so is the entirety of the narrative -- simultaneously reproduced on different picture planes, and in various scales. Each figure, transparent through the broken surfaces is stripped of the external. The characters breathe through a fractured mosaic of tissue and bone, bringing us closer to that which can be understood as the human soul. These wretched people are portrayed with compassion and intensity, trapped within their human condition in an urban landscape of torment.
The powerful depiction of depravity links this work to German Expressionism. Filonov's 1910 trip to Germany, France and Italy proved to be one of the most important turning points in his career, one he described as "a mental process arrested" (Filonov, p23). Indeed pessimistic works such as Otto Dix's War (see fig. 7) is an appropriate comparison. Dix identified War as "an altarpiece, as a site of silence and peace, surrounded by the bustle of human life outside, as site of meditation and as un-idealized memorial of the nameless martyr--soldier' (interview, 1964; cited by Schmidt, 1981, p. 262). Perhaps Poor People can also be understood as a ``meditation'' on the disintegration of society- blindly overlooked by the mechanical marching of the passer-bys.
Tragically, Filonov died of starvation during the Leningrad blockade in1941. He intentionally had never sold a single work, dreaming one day to see his art and of that of his students in a proper Museum of Analytical Art. Paintings by masters such as Pavel Filonov and his Collective rarely come up at auction, as most of Filonov's oeuvre is in the collection of the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg.
