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Post War and Contemporary Art
|
- Sale 6377
Live
| Chicago
Sep 25 | 10:00 AM CDT
Live
| Chicago
Sale 6377
| Chicago
| Chicago
Estimate$6,000 – $8,000
Provenance:
Private Collection, Maryland
Sold: Sotheby's, New York, June 7, 2013, Sale N09004, Lot 232
Purchased from the above sale by the present owner
Lot Note:
Ilya Bolotowsky (1907-1981) was born and spent his early life in Russia. He fled to New York City in 1923. Having endured the violence of World War I and the Russian Revolution, he spent his life in search of "an ideal harmony and order… a free order, not militaristic, not symmetrical, not goose-stepping, not academic."
Between 1924 and 1930, Bolotowsky studied at the National Academy of Design, after which he spent some time teaching art and working as a textile designer. With just enough money and a scholarship, he had the opportunity to spend ten months traveling around at least five European countries. He was already familiar with the European Modernists and the avant-garde, particularly excited about Cubist and Expressionist aesthetics, and the subversion of naturalism in general.
Upon his return to the United States, Bolotowsky worked on some public projects and began honing his creative style. He was especially fascinated with the work of Piet Mondrian. In 1936, Bolotowsky was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists: a group which celebrated abstract art despite existing in creative culture that seemed to resist it. He also associated with The Ten Whitney Dissenters, among other famous artists, who joined together in rebellion against the Academy.
Tondo in Three Reds is a culmination of all Bolotowsky’s life inspiration. Painted in 1976, toward the end of his life, this piece marries the limited, cohesive color palette of a Cubist work with the grid-like composition of a Mondrian and the subject-less nature of Abstract art more generally. Tondo in Three Reds represents everything with which Bolotowsky identifies, carefully summarized in a circular composition that, indeed, achieves “harmony and order,” “not militaristic, not symmetrical, not goose-stepping, not academic.”
Bib:
americanart.si.edu/artist/ilya-bolotowsky-489
To request further details about this lot, please email [email protected]
Unframed.
Minor surface dirt and dust; a few pinpoint accretions; one small fleck of loss at extreme right edge. Appears to be in overall good and stable condition. Please request additional images for further detail.
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