?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
MIKHAIL LARIONOV (1881-1964) GRAND BAL DES ARTISTES. 1923. Ticket / poster and hand-bill. Sizes vary. Conditions vary, generally A. Paper. Painter, stage designer and graphic designer, Larionov studied art in Moscow and moved to Paris with his wife, Natalia Gontcharova in 1914. Larionov became one of the major figures of the twentieth-century avant-garde, at least in part because of his relationship with Diaghilev, with whom he worked for years at the Ballet Russes. While still in Russia he organized several seminal art exhibitions including The Donkey's Tail and The Jack of Diamonds, and he organized an international exhibition of avant-garde art called The Golden Fleece. He was involved in Fauvism, and founded the Rayonist movement and his work helped pave the way for the Futurism of Marinetti and for artists like Francis Picabia and Man Ray. When in Paris Larionov and Gontcharova continued to be involved with Russian art movements and thus it is quite fitting that he designed the poster for one of the first artists' balls of the Union of Russian Artists. Using only two colors, yellow and black, as well as hand-cut letters, the image suggests smaller yet recognizable versions of cubist figures and works of art. The poster has a definite flavor of the Paris avant-garde in the 1920s. With a green flyer for the same event, featuring the same image, each printed from woodblocks.
