David Davidovich Burliuk Lot n° 508

Port. Oil on wood. 1906. ca. 20 x 32 cm. Signed and dated in Cyrillic lower left. As an artist and writer, David Burliuk is one of the most important representatives of the Russian avant-garde and Russian Futurism. From 1899 he studied at the art schools in Odessa and Kazan as well as at the art academy in Munich and in 1904/05 at the studio of Fernand Cormon in Paris. He is a member of several avant-garde movements in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In 1910 he meets Kandisnky in Moscow. Through this contact he is involved in the 2nd exhibition of the Neue Künstlervereinigung Munich as well as the almanac "Der Blaue Reiter" and the exhibition of the same name. Burliuk influences Kandinsky's selection of Russian artists for the compilation of the texts of the almanac and for the exhibition. In 1913 Burliuk participates in the First German Autumn Salon in the gallery "Der Sturm", and in 1914 a Futurist tour takes him through seventeen Russian cities together with Mayakovsky and Kaminsky. In 1918, due to the Russian Revolution, he moved to the USA after stays in China and Japan. In 1920, an extensive show in Tokyo presented his works, although he had to leave behind about 700 works and thus a large part of his œuvre in Moscow when he emigrated. In 1967 Burliuk died on Long Island near New York. David Burliuk's small "Harbor" is one of the few surviving works by the artist from his early period, created directly after his study visit to Paris. Here he immersed himself in an art scene in which Impressionism had already established itself, the further development towards Pointillism was in full swing, and the Fauves around Henri Matisse chose pure primary and complementary colors as the basis for their compositions freed from symbolic or social pictorial content. Burliuk juxtaposes the paint accordingly with broad brushstrokes, the brown of the unprimed wooden panel becoming part of the composition and underscoring the immediate sensation of the motif and the rejection of academic painting. Exhibition: Der Blaue Reiter und das neue Bild, Städtische Galerie Lenbachhaus, Munich 1999, cat.-no. 213, with coloured illustration, plate 139. Provenance: Private property, Switzerland, since the 1970s; Koller, Zurich 24.6.2010, lot 3215; Private collection, Europe. Taxation: Differentially taxed (VAT: Margin Scheme).