20 - Marie Vorobieff Marevna,

Marie Vorobieff Marevna, Russian/British 1892-1984 - Portrait of a woman, 1947; oil on board, signed and dated lower left 'Marevna 1947', 54.5 x 38 cm (ARR) Provenance: The Estate of Len Gordon and Anya Teixeira Note: Marevna met Anya Teixeira at the Pushkin Club for Russian exiles when she moved back to London in the 1950s. Teixeira helped support her, organising materials and a large space for her to paint in. The depth of the collection of her works held by Gordon and Teixeira is a testament to their deep friendship. Marevna, reputedly the nickname given to her by the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky after a Russian fairy sea princess, worked closely with Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and her lover Diego Rivera. Regarded as the first female Cubist painter, she played a significant role in the movement, a legacy that has sadly tended to overlooked oin the histories of the period. Marevna moved to Paris in 1912 where she became acquainted with some of the greatest artists and writers of the early 20th century. Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Modigliani and Matisse were just a handful of the famous names she knew. It was also here where she met Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (who would later marry Frida Kahlo), with whom she began a tempestuous and complicated relationship that produced a daughter and continued until Rivera abandoned Paris for Mexico in 1921.