25 - Léon Zack (1892-1980) | Russian-French

Léon Zack (1892-1980) | Russian-French Seated Figure with a Mirror, c. 1940's Ink on Paper Signed: Signed ‘Léon Zack’ in ink (lower right). Dimensions: Framed, glazed: 49 × 31.5 cm | 19.3 × 12.4 in Artwork: 41 × 24 cm | 16.1 × 9.4 in Provenance: Private Collection, Alicante, Spain. Condition: Pen and ink and grey wash on cream paper. The sheet is lightly toned, with a few small spots of foxing in the margins; framed under glass, not examined out of the frame. Please contact us to request a detailed Condition Report. Conditions of Sale: All lots are sold as is, in the condition described. The condition summary is given as a courtesy; a full condition report is available on request before the sale. Attributions are governed by our Terms and Conditions. All enquiries must be made before bidding; no further information can be provided after the sale. By placing a bid you confirm that you have read and accept our Terms and Conditions in full, as set out in the terms of this sale. Shipping: Aurora & Athena coordinates professional, insured shipping for every purchase through vetted logistics partners: packing, transport, insurance and the export paperwork are arranged on the buyer's behalf and charged at the provider's cost. Buyers are equally welcome to collect in Barcelona or to appoint a carrier of their own. Lots are released once the total purchase price has been received. For shipments outside the EU an export licence may be required and Spanish export duties may apply to certain higher-value works; these are the buyer's responsibility. No export tax applies within the EU. Full shipping and export information is available on request. -- A seated figure, drawn in a nervous, continuous pen line over a wash of grey, holds up a hand mirror and turns from it towards us; the drapery over the knees is scribbled in with the same restless pen, and the grey wash stops short of the edges of the sheet, leaving the figure in a lit cell of its own. It is a study in the pen-and-wash manner of Zack’s figurative years, before 1947, when he was illustrating books, designing for the theatre and painting religious subjects in a loose, expressive line descended from Rembrandt’s drawings and from Rouault. Léon Zack (1892–1980), born near Nizhny Novgorod and settled in Paris from 1923, became after the war one of the painters of lyrical abstraction; his early drawings, of which this and the following lot are a pair in matching frames, show the hand before the abstraction.