?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
JOHAN S. SJOLLEMA (1900-1990) BORIS GODOUNOV / CHALIAPINE. 1931. 35x47 3/4 inches, 121x89 cm. L. Van Leer & Co., Amsterdam. Condition B+: repaired tears, creases and wrinkles in margins and image; sharp vertical and horizontal folds. Japan. Sjollema was a painter and graphic designer who studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and with André Lhote in Paris. For this Dutch performance of Mussorgsky's famous opera, Sjollema has created a complex image. Using the title to create a stage, he depicts Feodor Chaliapin (widely considered to be the greatest Russian opera singer of the twentieth century) in the title role. The great basso is shown against a tempestuous, if not fiery background, framed within geometric shapes that symmetrically block off the center of the poster. The typography follows the sophisticated lines of the layout. In the lower right corner Sjollema depicts the neck of double bass. It is a diagonal counterpoint to the leaning Chaliapin, which suggests the mighty basso voice of the singer and evokes Toulouse-Lautrec (who used the same imagery so masterfully in his poster for Jane Avril and the Divan Japonais). A tremendous convergence of talent, Boris Godunov is considered Mussorgsky's masterpiece, it is also renowned as Chaliapin's most famous part and it is certainly Sjollema's best poster. Modern Dutch 97.
