Lot 384: PAVEL TCHELITCHEV

PAVEL TCHELITCHEV 1898-1957 LEAF CHILDREN Signed P. Tchelitchew and dated 40 (lower right) Watercolor and pen and ink on paper 16 3/4 by 13 3/4 in. 42.5 by 35 cm Executed in 1940.

Lincoln Kirstein, New York (acquired directly from the artist)
Private Collection (gifted from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

The landscape surrounding the artist's studio in Weston, Connecticut provided him with the inspiration for some of his best-know works. Tchelitchev became fascinated with the woods, particularly by individual leaves. "Satiny, leathery, or like work silk--foliage of beech, maple, oak and black birch...He saw these leaves as mantles, hats and skirts of leaf-children, who, with spears of wheat, battled in the wind. The leaves blow trumpets, the children wrestle and triumph; their heads become blossoms; they nestle in Queen Anne's Lace and in strawberry leaves" (Lincoln Kirstein, Pavel Tchelitchew, New York, 1964, p. 38). The following year, these leaf children developed into an idea about the game hide-and-seek. The fully realized oil, Hide and Seek (Cache-Cache), in the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, is widely recognized as Tchelitchev's greatest painting.