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Impressionist & Modern Art
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3204
MICHEL KIKOÏNE(Retschyza 1892 - 1968 Cannes)
Fleurs et nature morte à la mandoline.
1915.
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower right: Kikoine.
81.5 x 65.5 cm.
Provenance:
- Collection Oscar Ghez, Geneva.
- Christie's London, Impressionist, Ex-
pressionist and Modern Paintings and
Sculpture, 24 June 1985, lot 153.
- Private collection, Switzerland.
Exhibitions:
- Turin 1964, 80 Pittori da Renoir a Kisling.
Galeria civica d'arte moderna, 7 February
- 5 April 1964.
- Geneva 1968, L'Aube du Vingtième Sièc-
le. Petit Palais, no. 477.
- Geneva 1989, Mané-Katz et son Temps.
Petit Palais, no. 38.
Literature: Cassou, Jean: Kikoïne. Lau-
sanne 1973, no. 25, p. 235 (with ill.).
Michel Kikoïne travelled with Chaim Souti-
ne by train fromVilnius to Paris, where they
lived and worked in the La Ruche artists'
colony. Together with other Lithuanian
immigrants, they provided an important,
new impetus to the group later known as
the School of Paris. They absorbed all of
the influences there, combining themwith
their own experiences.
He married in 1914 and that same year,
with the outbreak of World War I, he
volunteered to serve France as a sol-
dier. Although Kikoïne certainly knew the
radical, newly developed styles of Picas-
so, Braque and Gris, such as Cubism, he
chose to develop his own form of figura-
tive expression. Thus, the present still life
presents similar objects found in Cubist
still lifes, such as the flowers, documents
and mandolin.
The work was formerly part of the impor-
tant collection of Oscar Ghez. One key
focus for Ghez in forming his collection
was on works by Jewish artists who were
victims of World War II and initially forgot-
ten. He was co-founder of the Musée du
Petit Palais in Geneva, where the present
work has been exhibited twice.
CHF 25 000 / 40 000
(€ 23 150 / 37 040)