MEDIA CENTRE

FILATOV ART FUND BUYS PAINTING BY RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE MASTER LENTULOV

The Filatov Family Art Fund has acquired "By the Vegetable Stall" (1932), a rare canvas by Aristarkh Lentulov, one of the most prominent representatives of the Russian avant-garde movement, whose work influenced Kazimir Malevich and Wasilly Kandinksy among others.


Aristarkh Lentulov was born in 1882, the youngest in an impoverished family of a rural priest near Penza. After studying art in Penza and Kiev, he continued his studies in St Petersburg and in Paris, where in 1911 he attended the La Palette Academy, a school renowned as a centre for cubist and futurist art of the time. During the 1910s, Lentulov was a prominent member of Russia's avant-garde art scene, and created his own recognisable style by combining cubism and futurism with elements of traditional icon painting and popular print. In the 1920s, he started to return to realistic styles and began to paint smaller works. His paintings are owned by the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum in St Petersburg as well as some regional art museums.


"By the Vegetable Stall" (1932) depicts two urban women shopping at a vegetable stall at a market, with a third woman standing behind the counter. The women are surrounded by crates and barrels, full of bright fruits and vegetables, all placed in a pattern that looks more like a geometric pattern than a real stall. The figures are carefully painted in a realistic style, which is quite different from Lentulov's huge earlier canvases. The geometric lines combined with the bright colours and sharp contrasts remind of his brave experiments with futurism and cubism.


Andrey Filatov, founder of the Fund said: "Aristarkh Lentulov was one of the founding fathers of the Jack of Diamonds Russian avant-garde association, yet his later experiments with realism and impressionism are less well-known. We want to raise awareness of the overlooked art from this time, and we have chosen "By the Vegetable Stall" as it combines both of the artist's creative periods in a subtle and unique way."

Lentulov

'By the Vegetable Stall' (1932). Oil on canvas, 120 x 180 cm.


Additional information


Aristarkh Lentulov (1882 - 1943) was born in the town of Nizhny Lomov near Penza into the family of a rural priest. He studied art in the Penza and Kiev art schools from 1897 to 1905, and then in the private studio of Dmitry Kardovsky in Saint Petersburg in 1906. He lived in Moscow from 1909, and he was one of the founders of the avant-garde exhibiting association of artists, the Jack of Diamonds group, which remained active until its dissolution in 1916. From 1910 to 1911 Lentulov studied at the Le Fauconnier studio and the La Palette Academy in Paris. Whilst there, he became acquainted with contemporary French painters such as Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger and Robert Delaunay and after absorbing fauvist and cubist principles, developed his own unique colourful style of painting. Later, after his return to Russia in 1912 he became a major influence on Russian futurism and in particular Cubo-Futurism. In 1928 Lentulov became a member of the Society of Moscow artists, which included artists formerly associated with the Jack of Diamonds group. He started teaching at the Russian state art and technical school.