BORIS GRIGORIEV (RUSSIAN 1886-1939) Portrait of a Man gouache and graphite on board 54 x 36 cm (21 1/4 x 14 1/4 in.) [sight] signed lower right PROVENANCE Sotheby's, 23 April 2004, lot 82 Acquired at the above by the present owner. LITERATURE Tamara Galeyeva, Boris Grigoriev (Saint Petersburg: Zolotoy Vek; Khudozhnik Rossii, 2007), no. 208 (illustrated) LOT NOTES Boris Grigoriev was an extraordinary and a perspicacious portraitist. His depictions of well-known outstanding figures in Russian culture (those of Gorky, Chaliapin, Rachmaninov, Burliuk) made the artist known internationally. Grigoriev's contemporaries acknowledged his strong portraitship and said that "...he does not actually recreate a specific person in an Artwork, but rather gives his own representation of that one's personality. His portraits fascinate the beholder by an astounding combination of anatomical similarity to a person depicted, with a grotesquery of an image, created in a unique style of the artist." While painting the portraits in an avant-garde manner, Grigoriev never went to extremes, paying tribute to the original purposes of the portrait - a recognizable depiction of a person. The mood of Grigoriev's portraits is never satiric nor scornful. He aimed to show the role that the model is playing in their everyday life (for instance, refer to his portrait of V. Meyerhold) CONDITION N.B. All lots are sold in as-is condition at the time of sale. Please note that any condition statement regarding works of art is given as a courtesy to our clients in order to assist them in assessing the condition. The report is a genuine opinion held by Shapiro Auctions and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report or a photograph does not preclude the absence of defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Shapiro Auctions, LLC., including its consultants and agents, shall have no responsibility for any error or omission.