Lot 138: Igor Ershov (1916-1985)

Igor Ershov (1916-1985)
Eight illustrations for the fairytale Three Kingdoms
five signed with Cyrillic initial 'I' (lower right); two signed in Cyrillic and inscribed in Russian 'Fairytale "Three kingdoms" Ershov Igor' (on the mount); two inscribed in Russian 'Fairytale "Three kingdoms"' (on the mount)
five pencil and gouache; two pencil, gouache and ink; one pencil, gouache and coloured pencil on paper, unframed
7½ x 5¼ in. (19 x 13.5 cm.); and smaller (8)

The artist's family.

Igor Ivanovich Ershov, painter and graphic designer, was born into an artistic family; his father I. V. Ershov was an opera singer with the Imperial Marinsky Theatre and his mother was both a singer and a professor at the St Petersburg Conservatoire. He studied at the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he was taught by I. Brodsky and I. Bilibin, masters of the 'silver age' of Russian painting.

From the 1950s onwards, Ershov worked mainly as an illustrator of children's books. At least two generations of Russian children grew up reading Khovorod with Ershov's illustrations. Ershov's works can be found in the collections of a number of Russian museums including the State Russian Museum and State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and in museums and private collections in both France and England.