Another F
Reschetnikov, Fedor
1906 - 1989
Another F
Oil on canvas
100 x 92cm
1950's
Signed
PROVENANCE:
Arrived in the USA with Russian emigrants in the early 1990's
With Dealer - Charles Clinton Lindley
By descent to the heirs of Charles Clinton Lindley and sold by them at:-
Bill Hood & Son Auctioneers, Boca Raton, Florida, USA
With Dealer - Ilya Chervony, Miami, USA
LITERATURE:
Certificate Helena Plastok
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
General Reference:
L. Yevgrafova (Евграфова Л.), Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov (Федор Павлович Решетников), Perm, 1961, Fyodor Reshetnikov (album), "Izobrazitelnoe iskusstvo" pub., Moscow, 1982
Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov (Russian: Фёдор Павлович Решетников) (July 28 [O.S. July 15] 1906 - December 13, 1988) was a prominent Soviet painter. A preeminent practitioner of "socialist realism", Reshetnikov was recognized by the government for his work and was a member for three and a half decades of the Soviet Academy of Arts. His creations are held in Russia's finest collections, including the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the Russian Museum (Saint Petersburg), the State Historical Museum (Moscow), and others.
Reshetnikov was born in Sursko-Litovskoe village in what is now Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine, into a family of icon painters. Orphaned at an early age, Reshetnikov was raised by his brother, who painted church frescoes and icons for a living, and who employed Reshetnikov as an apprentice.
Having never attended secondary school, Reshetnikov enrolled in a remedial "Rabfak" institution as preparation for attending Moscow's elite art college VKHUTEIN.
While still an art student, Reshetnikov's prowess in realist representation got him a position as resident "artistic reporter" on two arctic expeditions in 1932-34 with famous explorer Otto Schmidt on the Sibiryakov and on the doomed Chelyuskin. Reshetnikov was one of the people rescued from the ice after the Chelyuskin sank.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Reshetnikov emerged as one of the Soviet Union's best known socialist realists. He specialized in two types of paintings: depictions of Soviet leadership (his several drawings of Stalin were favored by the dictator) and of ordinary lives. Children were particularly common in his paintings.
Throughout his life, Reshetnikov opposed formalism in art, exposing it wherever he found it. His views were popular with the authorities and he became an appointed member of the Academy of Arts in 1953 and its vice-president in 1974. Reshetnikov received many prestigious governmental awards for his contributions to Soviet culture, including the Stalin Prize.
Reshetnikov taught art in two Moscow colleges from 1953 until 1962. In 1963 he authored a book (Secrets of Abstractionism, Тайны абстракционизма), in which he expounded his negative views of "bourgeois" artistic movements.
Reshetnikov died in Moscow in 1988.
Another F
This version of Another F repeats the well-known painting of 1952 held in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The young boy looks despondent and ashamed in light of his poor academic performance. His mother looks on concerned whilst his younger brother seems delighted with his brother’s discomfort. This painting is a famous Soviet painting and was much loved in Russia. Such well-received paintings were copied by other artists and there is a possibility that this painting is such a copy. However, the art historian, Helena Plastok, who is a specialist in Soviet art 1930’s – 1950’s, and has examined this painting, is convinced it is by Reschetnikov himself and the fluent signature, the confident handling of paint and the similar technique to the painting in the Tretyakov Gallery lean towards this indeed being a version by Reschetnikov himself. In addition the painting has clearly been on exhibit in a Russian or former Soviet block museum at some point due to the old inventory number on the reverse and such museums were only allowed to exhibit author versions.
