Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Acquired by the present owner in 1990 from the personal collection of the Lanskoy connoisseur, Monsieur A. Pittiglio of Galerie Pittiglio, Paris

The offered lot will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Lanskoy by André Schoeller, Paris and is sold with a certificate of authenticity written by him in 1990.

Andrei Mikhailovich (known primarily as André) Lanskoy (1902-1976) was born in Moscow but spent his childhood and adolescent years in St. Petersburg, at the time, capital of the Russian Empire. Of noble descent, he studied at the prestigious Corp de Page School but was much more interested in theatrical novelties such as the cabaret Brodiachaya Sobaka and Prival Kommediantov: two centres gathering the cultural and social elite of the Russian capital and it was during this period that Lanskoy was befriended by Sergei Sudeikin. At the outbreak of the Russian revolution, the Lanskoy family sought refuge in Kiev, which itself soon became a centre of military activity. During his stay in Kiev, the young Lanskoy studied under Alexandra Exter who taught him about the innovative approach to colour and composition. In search of an escape from war-split Russia, the Lanskoy family split, and the sixteen-year old Andrei joined the White Army retreating towards Crimea under the force of the advancing Red Army. From there, together with thousands of other Russian refugees (officers, writers and artists), he sailed to Constantinople. His stay there was brief, and by 1920 he had managed to reach Berlin where the rest of his family was living. A year later in 1921, the nineteen-year old artist arrived in Paris, the place that would become his residence for the rest of his life. There he continued his formal training at the art studios and under the tutelage of his old friend Sergei Sudeikin, and soon began exhibiting in the art shows with Chaim Soutine, K. Terechkovitch, O. Tsadkine, and V. Bart among others. During this time and up until the 1930s, Lanskoy painted still-lifes, landscapes, portraits and genre scenes, both en plein air and in the studio. Not interested in merely documenting the reality around him, Lanskoy created fantastic symphonies in colour, expressing and documenting an emotional resonance to the bright vibrating colours and various colour hues. He chose to simplify form and flatten the space with a method similar to the neo-primitive approach, and he turned his paintings into mesmerising colourful mosaics. His style resonated well with the dominant approach favoured by the international 'Parisian school' of the 1920-1930s.

It was later that the artist's passionate experimentation with pure colour and complete departure from figurative art culminated in his pure abstract approach, which became his style of preference until his death in 1976. His first works, gouaches where figurative and abstract geometric forms co-existed, Lanskoy created as a result of the direct influence of Vasilii Kandinskii. Lanskoy saw experimental paintings by Kandinskii at the exhibitions in Paris in late 1930s, and it is clear that works by both artists carried strong musical associations. To some degree, Lanskoy can be compared with a composer creating a unique melody and also with its editor and interpreter, as could Kandinskii. Equally important was the influence of the famous Swiss artist Paul Klee, personally known to the young Lanskoy. His works marked a transition from the decorative–ornamental non-figurative reality to the associative approach so clearly expressed in the early, and even to some extent the later, works by André Lanskoy.

The first exhibition of abstract works by Lanskoy was shown in Paris in 1942, and only two years later abstraction became the style of choice for the talented Russian artist. Gradually, Lanskoy completely abandoned all figurative motifs, and embraced 'soft lyrical abstraction', a decision which eventually brought him commercial success and international recognition. His works in gouache and oil, especially the larger ones, resonate with powerful and saturated colours and are characterised by strong rhythmic compositions. Every one of Lanskoy's works is given a unique and unusual title and is memorable for its two prevailing and dominant colours.

L'abîme du soir is an important example of an abstract composition from that period. The intensity and saturation of colours, deliberate compositional clarity and tactile richness of the surface create a fantastic impression. There is a seemingly limited number of expressive devices, line and colour, and the way in which they can be overlapped and combined results in endless variations which create an unparalleled emotional response from the viewer.

During the 1960-1970s, Lanskoy continued to experiment with abstraction. He searched tirelessly for a new form of expression, employing new techniques and devices. He introduced a collage technique whereby coloured pieces of paper, often individually coloured by the artist himself, were incorporated into the paint surface; Lanskoy often included labels, paper tags and even fabrics and pieces of newspaper. In the early 1950s, Lanskoy designed decorative tapestries, including a special commission for the trans-Atlantic cruise boat France. By the beginning of the 1970s, he was preoccupied with mosaic, and together with his students created series of large mosaic panels for architectural projects in various French cities. These works, albeit in abstract form, conveyed the artist's early childhood memories of colourful carnivals, street fairs and the theatrical cabaret performances of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. Perhaps it was the same nostalgic memories which manifested themselves in a series of unique book illustrations combining collage and painted decoration for a special edition of Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman. As always, the most important element, the dominating creative element of all his works was pure, unrestrained and multi-faceted colour.

Lanskoy's works gained a large following in France where the artist lived for 57 years, but of late, he has become inseparable from the history of Russian culture and art. His legacy goes beyond his influence as an artist because he was also an intelligent and witty critic of art, including his own works. His aphoristic remarks, recorded by his students, shed light on Lanskoy's driving forces and principles: 'Inspiration does not materialise. It is inclined to involve itself in the act of creation. As God creates man in his own image, so the artist's creation is a reflection of his own internal world. [Therefore] art has no beginning or end... If one reaches the goal, then painting is a failure'.