Lot 44: - David Shterenberg , 1881-1948 Fruit and Plate on a Red Background oil on canvas

oil on canvas

45 by 54.5cm, 17 3/4 by 21 1/2 in.

Acquired directly from the artist by the previous owner

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION
In his early twenties David Shterenberg left Zhitomir to study in Odessa, Vienna and eventually Paris, where he attended the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Vitti. The bright, lush palette of his tutor, Kees Van Dongen, can be felt in canvases painted by Shterenberg over a decade later, such as the offered work, which dates from the 1920s and White Vase on Red Background (1931, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts) (fig.1). From 1908 onwards, in his still lifes one can also trace the influence of Cezanne, an artist with whom he became increasingly preoccupied during his Paris period. Inspired by these two masters and the animated scene at the Café de la Rotonde, Shterenberg's work attracted growing critical acclaim and by 1917 he was exhibiting alongside Matisse, Utrillo and Ozenfant. In 1917 however, he made the choice, relatively unusual amongst the émigré artistic community, to return to Russia. The post-revolutionary era was a hopeful time for the young Russia and it was also Shterenberg's most successful period: he exhibited with Marc Chagall and Nathan Altman at a 1919 Moscow exhibition of Jewish artists and his European and American exhibitions gained him an international reputation as a leading painter of still lifes. As one critic put it 'He doesn't simply use his eyes to see, he feels with them too". At his 1927 solo exhibition in Moscow, the critics singled out his distinctive colours and innovative use of perspective, which liberated everyday objects from their surrounds. In the offered lot, the composition is built around a similar principle, with isolated objects suspended in time and space, but whereas the monochrome backgrounds and flat planes in his earlier works convey a sense of austerity and paucity, in Fruit and Plate on a Red Background this is exchanged for textured, energised brushwork and the primary colours of his Dutch Fauvist teacher, which injects a new element of dynamism into his work. In the early 1920s Shterenberg's Moscow flat was frequented by other young champions of new art, such as Mayakovsky, Tatlin and Tyshler and he found another strong supporter in Lunacharsky. By the mid 1930s however, his independent style would fall foul of the Soviet establishment, which makes a mature piece such as the offered work, charged as it is with vitality and optimism, all the more poignant and rare.