Still Life with Roses
Gerasimov, Aleksandr Mikhailovich
Kozlov 1889 - Moscow 1963
Still Life with Roses
Oil on Canvas
90 x 85cm
1947
Signed in Cyrillic and dated 'A. Gerasimov 1947'lower left
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Sochi
EXHIBITED:
The Moscow World Fine Art Fair (MWFAF), Manege, Moscow, 27th May - 2nd June 2008.
Aleksander Gerasimov was one of the most important Russian artists of the Soviet period and he rose to become the President of the Union of Artists. This beautiful painting of a ‘Still Life with Roses’ is a fine example of the type of work he painted for himself and his friends in his free moments. He was however, very proud of these Impressionist studies and it is telling that he gave a related painting, also made at his dacha at Michurinsk, to the Tretyakov Gallery.
‘After Rain, a wet verandah,’ 1935, 78 x 85 cm, Tretyakov gallery.
The life and creative work of Alexander Gerasimov were closely connected with the Tambov region and his native town Michurinsk (former Kozlov), where he was born on August 12th 1881. From 1888 to 1903 Gerasimov studied at school. In 1903 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and was taught by distinguished Russian artists as A.Arkhipov, K.Korovin and V.Serov.
In 1915 Gerasimov graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and three years later he returned to his native town. In 1925 he moved to Moscow. Beginning from 1926 he took part in the exhibitions of the Revolutionary Russia Artists Association. More than 100 works of painting and graphic art were exhibited in Gerasimov's first personal exhibition which was held in Moscow in 1936.
In 1947 Gerasimov became the first Director of the USSR Academy of Art and he remained head of the Academy for 10 years. The creative legacy of this prominent Soviet painter, People's Artist of the USSR, laureate of four State prizes, is significant and includes more than two thousand works saved in Russian museums including the Tretyakov Gallery and Russian Museum.
This beautiful painting, ‘Still Life with Roses’ was painted at Gerasimov’s dacha in Michurinsk looking out of the window at the balcony. The view was a favorite of the artist which he painted many times and the water jugs appear in several of his other paintings. The two storey brick house had been built by the painter’s father Mikhail in 1886 and Gerasimov grew up there and returned every year. It now is the Gerasimov museum.
The balcony at the Gerasimov Museum in Michurinsk.
In this Impressionist study two vases full of roses sit beside a water jug, a glass, a clock and a cup. The clock tells us it is 5.00 o’clock and the late soft afternoon sun cuts into the room through the leafy trees outside. Most of the props appear in other paintings by the artist and the table is the same one as in Gerasimov’s ‘Portrait of the Artist’s wife’, 1929, (illustrated inside cover, ‘A Dictionary of Twentieth Russian and Soviet Painters, 1900 -1980’s’, Mathew Cullerne Bown, Izomar, London). The red and white roses are heavy in their full late summers bloom.
Although Gerasimov was successful and famous in Soviet times it is for his Impressionist still lives and landscapes such as ‘After the Rain’ (Tretyakov Gallery) and ‘Still life with Roses,’ whilst under the influence of Anders Zorn and I.E. Grabar, that the artist will be best remembered.
‘Still Life’, 1929, 117 x 117 cm by Alexandr Gerasimov.
