Still Life with Jugs
Korzhev, Geli
1925 -
Still Life with Jugs
Oil on Canvas
66 x 99cm
Signed
The painting depicts a frying pan, a bowl, a mug and two earthenware jugs on a wooden ledge under a suspended padlock. The compostion looks thrown together but is in fact carefully arranged by the artist to create balance and calm. The painting was authenticated by the artist in 2005 who said it was painted whilst staying in a village up in the far north of Russia. He said the items depicted such as the glazed earthenware jugs were favourite possessions of his that can be seen in many of his paintings of this period including the series of still lives from the 1960’s now in the permanent collection of the Tretyakov gallery.
On a website of the artists work the date of this painting is given as 1979 but the artist said he made many trips to the far north of Russia and he couldn’t remember on which trip this was painted and it could have been 1960’s or 1970’s. He said the point of such paintings was to show the simple pleasure of everyday objects and the challenge was to try and capture the different textures of the earthenware, wood and metals surfaces.
