Abstract Composition Signed Issaiev

Oil on canvas signed Issaiev for Nikolai Issaiev (1891-1977), abstract composition, gilt frame; dimensions with frame: 64 x 52 cm. Nikolai Issaiev was a French artist born near Odessa in 1891 in Ukraine. A painter, graphic artist, and theater designer, Issaiev studied in Odessa and Kharkiv at the studios of V. Shuchajev and A. Yakovlev, and at the Académie Ranson in Paris. He served in the army during World War I before immigrating to Belgrade in 1919, where he worked as a set designer at the National Theater. In 1925, he settled in Paris, where he became known in the Montparnasse art scene by painting landscapes, still lifes, and a few portraits. He was never, however, integrated into the ranks of the famous Montparnasse painters like Soutine and Foujita, and even less so into the School of Paris, of which he was nonetheless a member. The only movement and group he managed to join was the rather obscure Czech-Belgian Circle (Krug) Group, with which he exhibited numerous times in Brussels, Paris, and Belgrade. From 1940 to 1945, he settled in the south of France to live alone. After the Second World War, he frequently visited Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. Between 1945 and 1950, Issaiev created numerous illustrations for art publications, notably for the works of Pierre de Ronsard, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nikolai Gogol. In the 1950s and 1960s, he exhibited in Paris at the La Boétie and A. Weil galleries, as well as at the P. Bernet gallery in New York. He participated with several of his paintings in the major exhibition held in Paris in 1961 and then in Russia in 1974 under the title "Russian Artists of the School of Paris," thus achieving initial recognition three years before his death. (Galerie Chavanne)