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Lot Essay
Vera Rockline (1896-1934), born Schlezinger in Moscow 1896 of a French mother and a Russian father, was noted for her painterly talent at an early age. She studied with the neo-impressionist Il'ia Mashkov in Moscow and with the cubist Aleksandra Exter in Kiev. Rockline soon became known as Mashkov's most talented student.
In 1919 Rockline fled Russia, arriving in Paris in 1921 after a brief stay in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The following year she exhibited at the Salon d'Automne with great success, attracting the attention and admiration of contemporary critics as well as of the famous French fashion designer Paul Poiret, who bought two of her paintings. Poiret, a passionate and informed art collector, subsequently wrote an enthusiastic preface to her first solo exhibition in Galerie Charles Vildrac in 1925. She continued to exhibit to great acclaim at the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Independants as well as in numerous Paris galleries throughout the 1920s.
Vera Rockline's work is often described as sensual and lyrical, influenced both by Impressionism and contemporary Cubism as seen in the seductive nude of the present lot. The French art critic Marius-Ary Leblond hailed Rockline a "sister of the great Venetians and of our own Renoir...a great lyrical talent", stating in a memorial preface at the Salon d'Automne in 1934 that the artist's premature death that year was "one of the most painful losses to the Parisian art scene in recent years".
In 1919 Rockline fled Russia, arriving in Paris in 1921 after a brief stay in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The following year she exhibited at the Salon d'Automne with great success, attracting the attention and admiration of contemporary critics as well as of the famous French fashion designer Paul Poiret, who bought two of her paintings. Poiret, a passionate and informed art collector, subsequently wrote an enthusiastic preface to her first solo exhibition in Galerie Charles Vildrac in 1925. She continued to exhibit to great acclaim at the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Independants as well as in numerous Paris galleries throughout the 1920s.
Vera Rockline's work is often described as sensual and lyrical, influenced both by Impressionism and contemporary Cubism as seen in the seductive nude of the present lot. The French art critic Marius-Ary Leblond hailed Rockline a "sister of the great Venetians and of our own Renoir...a great lyrical talent", stating in a memorial preface at the Salon d'Automne in 1934 that the artist's premature death that year was "one of the most painful losses to the Parisian art scene in recent years".