Pavel Filonov

Pavel Filonov
Pavel Filonov
	1938-1939
Born	January 8, 1883; Moscow, Russia
Died	December 3, 1941 (aged 58)
Nationality	Russian
Known for	Painting

Pavel Nikolayevich Filonov (Russian: Па́вел Никола́евич Фило́нов, IPA: [ˈpavʲɪl nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ fʲɪˈlonəf] ^ⓘ; January 8, 1883 – December 3, 1941) was a Russian avant-garde painter, art theorist, and poet.

Biography

Portrait of E. N. Glebova (the artist's sister), 1915, oil on canvas. 117x152.5 cm. Russian Museum.

Filonov was born in Moscow on January 8, 1883 (Gregorian calendar) or December 27, 1882 (Julian calendar). In 1897, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he began taking art lessons. In 1908, he entered St. Petersburg Academy of Arts but was expelled in 1910.

Between 1910 and 1914, Filonov was a member of the art group Soyuz Molodyozhi ("Union of Youth"), founded by artists Elena Guro and Mikhail Matyushin. In 1912, he wrote The Canon and the Law, an article in which he articulated the principles of analytical realism, also known as "anti-Cubism". According to Filonov, while Cubism represents objects using elements of surface geometry, analytical realism seeks to represent objects through the elements of their inner essence or soul. He remained committed to these principles throughout his life.

A Peasant Family (The Holy Family), 1914, oil on canvas, 159x128 cm, Russian Museum.

During 1913–1915, he associated closely with futurists such as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, and other futurists. He collaborated with Kazimir Malevich to illustrate Khlebnikov's Selected Poems with Postscript, 1907–1914. ^[1] In the autumn of 1916, he enlisted to serve in World War I and was stationed on the Romanian front. Filonov later took an active role in the Russian Revolution of 1917, serving as Chairman of the Revolutionary War Committee in the Dunay region.

In 1919, he participated in the "First Free Exhibit of Artists of All Trends" at the Hermitage. By 1923, he had become a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and a member of the Institute for Artistic Culture (INKhUK). There, he founded the Masters of Analytical Realism, a significant art school with over seventy members, including the American sculptor and painter Helen Hooker. The group's work had a lasting influence on movements such as suprematism and expressionism.

A major retrospective of Filonov's work was planned at the Russian Museum in 1929, but the Soviet government prohibited it. From 1932 onward, Filonov endured severe poverty, refusing to sell his works to private collectors. He wished to donate his entire collection to the Russian Museum to establish a Museum of Analytical Realism. Tragically, he died of starvation on December 3, 1941, during the Siege of Leningrad.

Method

Under the umbrella of Universal Flowering, Filonov put forth a manner of working that proceeded from the particular to the general. He believed that objects and fields should be built up from small details and bits and stated that doing it the other-way-round was nothing short of "charlatanism". To this end, he worked, and required his students to work, with very small brushes in painting and the finest of points when drawing.

Legacy

Self portrait, 1921

Most of Filonov's works were saved by his sister Yevdokiya Nikolayevna Glebova. She stored the paintings in the Russian Museum's archives and eventually donated them as a gift. Exhibitions of Filonov's work were forbidden. In 1967, an exhibition of Filonov's works in Novosibirsk was permitted. In 1988, his work was allowed in the Russian Museum. In 1989 and 1990, the first international exhibition of Filonov's work was held in Paris.

During the period of half-legal status of Filonov's works it was seemingly easy to steal them; however, there was a legend that Filonov's ghost protected his art and anybody trying to steal his paintings or to smuggle them abroad would soon die, become paralyzed, or have a similar misfortune.