Lot n° 156
Estimation :
18000 - 20000
EUR
SOMOFF Constantin Andreyevich (1869-1939). - Lot 156
SOMOFF Constantin Andreyevich (1869-1939).
The Masquerade.
Ink drawing heightened with watercolor on paper signed lower right in Cyrillic script "K. Somoff", preserved under glass in a modern blackened wood frame with gilded border. Good condition.
Sight: H.: 18 cm - W.: 12 cm.
Frame: H.: 27.5 cm - W.: 22.5 cm.
Provenance:
Former Provatoroff collection.
Kept by Marie Provatoroff (1897-1938), then by Peter
Provatoroff (1883-1963), and by descent.
Christie's sale, London, November 26, 2018, lot n°6.
Biography: Constantin Alexievitch Somoff was a Symbolist painter, draughtsman and book illustrator. His father was curator of the Hermitage collections.
In this artistic environment, he studied at the Karl Maï classical college, where he made friends with Alexandre Benois, Walter Nouvel and Dimitri Filossofov. From 1888 to 1897, he studied at the Higher Art Institute of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, with Vasily Verechtchagin (1842-1904) and Pavel
Tchistiakoff (1832-1919) and joined Ilya Répine's studio in 1894. From 1897 to 1899, he worked in Colarossi's studio in Paris. He became an academician in 1913 and a member of the Monde de l'Art in 1899, and from 1903 to 1910 of the Union des
Russian Artists. He left Russia in 1924 for a group exhibition in the USA, and exhibited his work in Paris the same year. In 1925, he moved to France, where he bought a property in Normandy and, in 1928, an apartment in Paris on boulevard Exelmans. From then on, he took part in numerous group exhibitions in 1928, 1930 and 1932. He died in Paris in 1939 and is buried in the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. In 1950, a tribute exhibition was held in Oxford, and in 1969 in Leningrad and Moscow to mark the centenary of his birth.
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