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RUSSIAN, 1882-1967
IN A SIBERIAN VILLAGE

IN A SIBERIAN VILLAGE

measurements
40 by 50 in.

alternate measurements
101.6 by 127 cm

signed Burliuk and dated 31 (lower right)

sculptured mixed media on canvas

PROVENANCE

Max Granick Collection, circa 1939
Arthur and Anne Granick
George Krevsky Gallery

EXHIBITED

Southhampton, New York, The Parrish Art Museum, Burliuk, Years of Transition, 1910-1931, June 24-July 23, 1978, no. 30
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, November 1932-January 1933

LITERATURE

Katherine S. Dreier, Burliuk., New York, 1944, p. 82, fig. 24, illustrated (titled The Russian Primitive)
M. Burliuk, Color and Rhyme, Hampton Bays, New York, no. 57, illustrated

NOTE

The Russian Primitive is one of the most accomplished and powerful works by David Burliuk to come to auction. The painting was included in the first New York Whitney Biennial exhibition in 1932, one year after the Whitney Museum of Art officially opened to the public. From its inception, the Biennial became the forum for the most innovative contemporary art. The Russian Primitive showcases Burliuk at his most expressive and flamboyant. A huge proponent of Neo-Primitvism in the early decade of the 20th century, David Burliuk returns to the genre in the present composition, a genre that artist and critic Alexander Benois cleverly described as ``a yearning for black bread.'' (Alexander Benois, ``Povorot k lubku,'' Rech' , March 1909, no. 75).

Throughout his career, Burliuk expressed his love of folk art, contemporary Russian lubki (which he deemed folk icon painting) and painted shop signs (see fig.1). These fertile areas for study remained inexhaustable sources of inspiration. Neo-Primitivist ideas were best described by Alexander Shevchenko in 1913, ``we desire a quest for new paths in our art, yet we by no means reject the old...We have the highest regard for primitive art-the magic fairy-tale of the Old East. The simple guileless beauty of lubok, the austerity of the primitive, the mechanical precision of construction, nobility of style, and fine color, all bropught togetherby the creative hand of the master artist-that is our password and our slogan'' (A. Shevchenko, Neo-Primitvism, Its Theory, Its Potentials, Its Achievements, 1913).

The Russian Primitive attracted attention from the art establisment, who immediately recognized the painting's significance. C. H. Bonte, a reviewer for the Philadelphia Enquirer commented in a February 23, 1936 review, ``memories of an older time in the artist's native land are also stirred in this exhibition. Most striking of all, however, is the vivid richly impasto conception of strange angles and distortions, `Winter in the the Bashkirian Steppe,' probably the most radical of paintings on view.'' Bonte additionally explained that it was likely The Russian Primitve was postdated in order to qualify it for inclusion in the Whitney Biennial and a more accurate date for the work would be circa 1928. At the time of its sale Burliuk told the purchaser that he brought the canvas from Japan; however it clearly does not relate to his Japanese period. Finally, the reviewer cleverly suggested that ``the village is composed within a crude outline of the United States.''

This work was published in the number 57 issue of Color and Rhyme (fig.2 & 3).