Lot 50: ILYA ABRAMOVICH GRINMAN

RUSSIAN, 1875-1944
IN THE SHADOWS

IN THE SHADOWS

measurements
77 by 108 1/4 in.

alternate measurements
196 x 275 cm

signed in Cyrillic and dated 1904 (lower right)

oil on canvas

LITERATURE

O.L. Leikind, K.V. Makhrov, D.Ia.Severiushin, Khudozhniki Russkogo Zarubezhia, 1917-1939, Biographical Dictionary, St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 244, listed as In the Shadows

NOTE

The present lot earned Ilya Grinman the title of Academician. Grinman was a student of Kovalevsky and Repin at the Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. A highly skilled portraitist, Grinman painted portraits of Gorky, Tolstoy, Aronson, and Lenin, among others; these works count among his most accomplished. Grinman even wrote reminiscences about his famous sitters. In 1927, like so many of his contemporaries, the artist emigrated to Paris and enjoyed his fare share of notoreity. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistses français, where he received a medal of merit.

On April 12, 1944, Grinman was arrested in his Paris atelier and deported. Most of his art was destroyed. This lot is an incredibly rare example of Grinman's Russian period.