7135 - Iacovleff, Alexandre

Iacovleff, Alexandre Portrait of a Man Facing Left Red chalk, partially smudged, on grayish vellum. 1938. 34.3 x 24.6 cm (mat cutout). Signed “AIacovleff” in red chalk and dated at the lower left. Using delicate smudges, Iacovleff—a Russian-French representative of Art Deco—gives the portrait of a young man a three-dimensional quality. Trained at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg under Dmitri Kardovski, he soon became active in the Mir Iskusstva movement. Following his study trips to the Far East and the concurrent October Revolution, the artist emigrated to Paris in 1917–19; this was followed by expeditions to Africa and the Orient: the “Croisière Noire” and “Croisière Jaune” with the industrialist André Citroën. From 1934 to 1937, Iakovleff was head of the painting department at the art school of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and did not return to Paris until shortly before his death. Provenance: Private collection, Berlin - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is usually not listed in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.