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Dimensions: 84.5 by 89.5cm., 33 by 35¼in.
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Provenance: A gift from the artist to the British Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR in 1946
Christie's London, Imperial and Post-Revolutionary Russian Art, 10 October 1990, Lot 233
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Literature: O.I.Podobedova, Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar, Moscow, 1964, P. 135 (ill.)
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Notes: Winter landscapes were a frequent subject of Igor Grabar's paintings, but this highly evocative work bears particular similarities to his picture Snowdrifts (1904, The Lvov Picture Gallery). Born in Budapest, Grabar grew up in St Petersburg where he studied law and only later turned to painting. He became an accomplished artist whose portraits, still lives and landscapes painted en plein-air are often impressionistic in style. A significant figure in the Soviet art world, from 1913 to 1925 he was director of the Tretiakov gallery and in 1941 won the Stalin Prize for his two volume work on Repin. He is also renowned for his Socialist Realist painting.