23 - Marie Vorobieff Marevna,

Marie Vorobieff Marevna, Russian/British 1892-1984 - Surreal figures playing poker; oil on board, signed lower left 'Marevna', 56.6 x 72.2 cm (ARR) Provenance: The Estate of Len Gordon and Anya Teixeira Note: Teixeira was a photographer and photojournalist, who befriended Marevna and supported her career when she moved back to London in the post-war era. She exhibited with the British Council and her works are now in the collection of the V&A. 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.