Pavel Filonov (1883-1941)

Pavel Filonov actively rejected the tenets of Picasso and Braque’s Cubism on the basis that these artists and those who followed them saw the world in the all too limited terms of colour and form with an overemphasis on the mechanical. Strongly opposed to urbanisation, Filonov consistently placed Nature, and by extension Man, at the centre of his work. This distinct approach explains to a large extent the pervasive presence of the human form in his compositions (heads in the case of the present work and in that of Filonov’s first serious painting completed in the winter of 1910–1911) even as his work became progressively more abstract.

Born in Moscow, a precocious child who drew from the age of three or four, Filonov gained admission into the St Petersburg Academy of Arts on his fourth attempt in 1908, only to be expelled two years into his studies for his refusal to accept the establishment’s conservative approach. From 1910–1913 Filonov developed his theory of ‘sdelannost’, a neologism meaning ‘handcrafted’ or ‘madeness’, which placed emphasis on craftsmanship and the composition of every item. The meticulous detail and blocky, carving-like outline of the heads in Untitled exemplify this approach.

On the basis of comparison to similar compositions, it has been suggested that the present work likely dates to between 1922–1925. The combination of Filonov’s premature death on 3 December 1941 during the blockade of Leningrad and his determination to retain his works in order to establish a Museum of Analytical Art makes the appearance of Untitled on the market a rare and significant event.