SERGE FÉRAT (Moscow, 1881- Paris, 1958). "Untitled,... Lot 25

SERGE FÉRAT (Moscow, 1881- Paris, 1958). "Untitled, ca.1930. Pencil on paper. Signed in the lower right corner. With stains on the paper and tear in the lower left margin. Size: 50 x 32 cm; 66 x 50 cm (frame). Serge Férat, pseudonym of Count Sergei Nikolayevich Yastrebzov, was a painter and decorator. In 1911, together with his friend Apollinaire and his cousin Baroness Hélène Oettingen, he bought the avant-garde magazine Les Soirées de Paris, which the poet edited. He took over its artistic direction under the pseudonym Jean Cérusse. The magazine was interrupted by the Great War. In 1917, Férat illustrated and designed the sets and costumes for Apollinaire's play Les Mamelles de Tirésias, directed by Pierre Albert-Birot at the Conservatoire Maubel in Paris. Ruined by the Russian Revolution, he nevertheless managed to continue painting. He exhibited at the Salon des indépendants, the Salon d'automne and the Salon de la Section d'Or. In the 1930s, his Cubist style became increasingly refined. He also produced tapestry cartoons for the Beauvais factory. He took part in the Russian Art Exhibition in Prague in 1935. His work was noticed in the great Cubist exhibition of 1953 at the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris.