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three faces with a horse watercolour on paper 34.5 by 31.5cm., 13I by 12Din. Although less well known than many of his contemporaries Pavel Filonov was a central and somewhat unique figure amongst the Russian avant-garde. A member of the Union of Youth group, he participated in their 1910, 1912 and 1913-14 exhibitions in St. Petersburg. In 1914 Filonov contributed to Futurist publications and began to develop his theory of 'Analytical Art' of which the work offered here is an excellent example. Three Faces with a Horse demonstrates Filonov's preoccupation with the use of line and obsession to detail - a technique that produces an almost kaleidoscopic effect. Filonov experienced the world around him as one filled with chaos and in trying to make sense of it in his art he believed each brush stroke, each line was of vital significance make every atom persistently and accurately. Throughout his career Filonov's work was mainly figurative and like Malevich and Goncharova he frequently depicted the Russian peasantry and their surroundings. Filonov produced a number of works of farm animals such as cows and donkeys; The Animals, 1930, but horses are reoccuring theme both in isolation; (Horses Faces 1924-5) and in a working partnership with man; (Cabman, 1913). In Filonov's works man and horse often seem to share a common level, for example in Shrovetide Carnival, 1913-14, both people and horses have the same blank faces, elongated noses and vacant stares. In 1925 Filonov established the Collective Masters of Analytical Art, a school that was to provide one of the few artistic oppositions to the social realism that was begining in the late 1920s. In 1932 the Collective Masters were dissolved but Filonov continued to paint according to his theory of Analytical Art.