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Artist or Maker: IGOR' GRABAR'

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Date: 1923.0

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Description: IGOR' GRABAR' (Russian, 1871-1960) Summer Evening, 1923 Oil on canvas 28 x 33-3/4 inches (71.1 x 85.7 cm) Signed and dated lower right in Cyrillic EXHIBITED: Grand Central Palace, New York, "Russian Art Exhibition", 1924 (label verso). Igor Grabar was born in Budapest under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his family was active in the Slav liberation movement. His father fled to Russia in 1876 and the family eventually followed him to Moscow. Grabar attended the Moscow Lyceum, studied law at St. Petersburg University and graduated from St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Art. After graduation, Grabar traveled throughout Europe visiting the major art centers, including Berlin, Rome, Florence, Venice and Paris, where the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters of the day made a noticeable impact on him. This stylistic influence is evident in his landscapes, still lifes and later portraits. Throughout his career, Grabar was not only a working artist but a custodian of Russian art as well. He published the first History of Russian Art, was the Director of the State Tretyakov Gallery, and from 1944 until his death in 1960 was the Director of the Institute of Art History of the Academy of Science of USSR. Grabar was a member of the Academy of Arts and a life member of the Salon d'Automne. Summer Evening was exhibited in the 1924 "Russian Art Exhibition" in New York. Grabar was appointed to supervise this exhibition of roughly 940 works housed in the Grand Central Palace on Lexington Avenue. This pastoral landscape typifies the impressionistic style of Grabar as it was filtered through a Russian lens. Its loose brushwork depicts verdant green fields in the foreground punctuated by a lone haystack. A road arcs toward the viewer, drawing us into the scene and towards a line of trees harboring small houses in the middle distance. There is a clear delineation between earth and sky, and the canvas has been equally split between the two.

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Medium: Oil on canvas

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Dimensions: 28in x 33.75in x 0in