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Lot Essay
Born in Kiev in 1858, Konstantin Kryzhitsky perfected his nascent talent at the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg from 1877 to 1884. Studying landscape painting under Mikhail Klodt, a founding member of the Peredvizhniki [Itinerants], Kryzhitsky achieved the rank of Artist of the First Class. He was subsequently made an Academician in 1889. From 1879 onwards, Kryzhitsky frequently exhibited at the Academy, but also abroad, most notably at the International Exhibition in Munich in 1909 where he was awarded a gold medal for his composition Frosty Morning [Moroznoe utro]. A leading member of a number of societies, including the Society of Russian Watercolourists [Obshchestvo russkikh akvarelistov] and the Kuindzhi Society [Obshchestva Kuindzhi], of which he was also President (1909-1911), Kryzhitsky was later commemorated by two significant solo exhibitions comprising around 600 works; the first in St Petersburg in 1911 and the second in Moscow in 1913.
Kryzhitsky was famed for his large-scale compositions, skillfully drawing together the varied land, dramatic skies and expansive vistas of his native land. Depicting the provinces of Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic States, Kryzhitsky’s work is evocative as well as well-observed; in Early Morning in the fields Kryzhitsky captures the beauty of an unbesmirched rural Russia, far removed from over-crowded cities scarred by industry. Kryzhitsky uses farm work – or here the scythe-wielding labourers themselves – to humanize the watery terrain, intimating the profound connection between Man and Nature and, moreover, the harmonious, even spiritual relationship between the two.
A native of St Petersburg, Tatiana Brussilowsky studied at the Sorbonne in Paris where she met her future husband, Michel Dubrowsky. Following their marriage, the couple settled in Kharkov, Ukraine, before eventually immigrating to France with their young daughter, Irene. Tatiana was active in the French Resistance during World War II, before embarking on a new adventure and boarding the Volendam to start a new life in Australia in 1949. According to family lore, this large and impressive Kryzhitsky is the last remaining work from a collection of five paintings that Tatiana Brussilowsky brought with her when she emigrated from France.
Kryzhitsky was famed for his large-scale compositions, skillfully drawing together the varied land, dramatic skies and expansive vistas of his native land. Depicting the provinces of Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic States, Kryzhitsky’s work is evocative as well as well-observed; in Early Morning in the fields Kryzhitsky captures the beauty of an unbesmirched rural Russia, far removed from over-crowded cities scarred by industry. Kryzhitsky uses farm work – or here the scythe-wielding labourers themselves – to humanize the watery terrain, intimating the profound connection between Man and Nature and, moreover, the harmonious, even spiritual relationship between the two.
A native of St Petersburg, Tatiana Brussilowsky studied at the Sorbonne in Paris where she met her future husband, Michel Dubrowsky. Following their marriage, the couple settled in Kharkov, Ukraine, before eventually immigrating to France with their young daughter, Irene. Tatiana was active in the French Resistance during World War II, before embarking on a new adventure and boarding the Volendam to start a new life in Australia in 1949. According to family lore, this large and impressive Kryzhitsky is the last remaining work from a collection of five paintings that Tatiana Brussilowsky brought with her when she emigrated from France.