Lot 18: Separated

Varvara Matveevna Baruzdina (1862-1941/1942) Separated signed in Cyrillic and dated 'V Baruzdina 1897' (upper right); loose label, World's Fair, St. Louis, 1904 oil on canvas 27 x 22½ in. (68.6 x 57.2 cm.) Painted in 1897

World's Fair, St. Louis, 1904, no. 161.

Official Catalogue of Exhibits, Department of Art, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 1904, no. 161, p. 283.

circa

Property of a California Collector
Varvara Baruzdina was mostly know as an accomplished genre and portrait painter, although late in her artistic career she devoted considerable effort to landscape painting. Daughter of a tradesman, she grew up in the family of her famous uncle, P.Chistiakov, a well-known professor and art instructor at the Academy of Art in St. Petersburg. After initial art instructions at home under the watchful eye of her uncle, Baruzdina later attended classes at the Academy successfully completing the course in 1885. Her charming genre scenes with intriguing narrative and accomplished painting technique did not go unnoticed. Two of her works, Posing for a Portrait , and Old Woman were acquired for the Academy of Arts, and a year later at the 1890 art exhibition in St. Petersburg the painting Grandmother (currently in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg) was awarded a silver medal. Yet the greater recognition came when Pavel Tretiakov acquired Baruzdina's painting Young Nun for his collection and bequeathed it to the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow in 1896. Encouraged by her initial success at home, Baruzdina welcomed the opportunity to exhibit her work abroad, and agreed to participate in the World's Fair known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The current painting is the only work sent by the artist to St. Louis in 1904. A charming picture of a young woman lost in her thoughts daydreaming in front of the portrait of a loved one exhibits the impulse to explore the invisible world of inner feelings, emotions, and hidden passions. As fate would have it, Baruzdina never saw her painting again nor did she receive any proceeds from its sale. The painting shared the fate of almost 600 other Russian works of art which disappeared into private and museum collections in America because of a series of ignorant and fraudulent acts by several individuals. Eventually many of these paintings were sold at public auction in 1912 to Mr. Frank C. Havens, a wealthy Oakland businessman and owner of the Piedmont Art Gallery who sold a large number of them at private auction in 1916. Today Varvara Baruzdina's painting is coming to the public attention for the first time since its international debut in St. Louis in 1904.