Estimated Price:

   $   

Realized Price:

   $   

What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction hose has verified this price result.

Login or subscribe to view price data

Portrait of Mrs. Louise Morgan signed and dated 'C. Somof Paris 1926' (lower right) oil on canvas 361/4x301/4in. (92.4x76.7cm.) executed in 1926 NOTES Painted between May and July 1926, the portrait and the sitter are mentioned on several occasions in the correspondence between the artist and his sister. See J.N. Podkopaeva and A.N. Sveshnikova, Somov, (Moscow, 1979) p. 300, 301 and 303. After receiving a general education in K.I. Mai's private grammar school, he entered the Academy of Arts, where from 1894 till 1897 he studied under Il'ya Repin. In February 1897, not having graduated from the Academy, Somov left for Paris, but in the autumn of 1899 he returned and settled in St. Petersburg for a long time. While still at grammar school, Somov had been friendly with Alexander Benois, V. Nuvel and D. Filosofov, and later with Sergei Diaghilev, the founders of the 'World of Art' society. The 'World of Art' was a heterogenous organization with contradictory ideological principles, like many other artistic groups which sprang up at the turn of the century. For Somov the most important and precious thing in painting was the 'cult of beauty', which was associated with the contemplative attitude to the world, and especially to the world of things. He observed life from a kind of artificially created 'realm of beauty'. As Repin's pupil he revealed various sides of his talent. He was keen on portraiture, rejoiced in elegant lines and was sensitive to the beauty of nature. He painted charming harlequins and eighteenth-century ladies and bosquets, and in these small, elegant works there emerged a curious world of the past. Perhaps without realizing it completely himself, Somov looked at things around him with bitter irony. Somov's art reflected the complexity and sharp contrasts of the age. Apart from works which manifested his oversensitivity and tendency to hide from the surrounding world, he produced brilliantly painted portraits and landscapes; they will always remain landmarks in Russian realist art of the turn of the century. Konstantin Somov died in Paris in 1939.