Cafe Gurzuf

Alexander Samokhvalov (1894-1971)

Alexander Samokhvalov is known in Soviet art for his famous portraits of typical young Soviet people of the 1930s ("Girl in a T-shirt", 1932, "Metrostroevka with a drill", 1937) as well as a monumental compositions ("Militarized Komsomol", 1933, "Sergei Kirov takes parade athletes", 1935, the monumental panel "Soviet Sport", 1936). They embodied the typical image of a young contemporary. The picture "Cafe" Gurzuf", continuing this theme, is an example of its new incarnation at another time and in other circumstances, when both the image and its picturesque decision are dictated not by the order, but solely by the author's intention.

Alexander Samokhvalov painted the present work in the mid-1950s at the zenith of his career. Not long beforehand, Samokhvalov had married his young wife Maria Alekseevna Kleschar, who became his muse and faithful assistant. Captivated by her beauty and youthfulness, Samokhvalov found her to be a source of true inspiration. The present work conveys the artist’s fascination with beauty and youth, as depicted by the central seated figure, for which Samokhvalov’s wife served as a model for the central female figure (a young woman at a table in a pink blouse, who apparently was studying menu). The graceful inclination of her head and the curve of her shoulders evince her delicate beauty.

Portrait of Maria Kleschar-Samokhvalov. 1953

In addition to artistic value, the picture has undoubted memorial and documentary value for us. This picture was painted by the artist in one of his visits to Gurzuf, where in 1950-60 he repeatedly rested with his wife Maria Alexeyevna Kleschar-Samokhvaya (1915-2000) on the creative base of Russian artists at the former summer residence of Konstantin Korovin. A Model for another female figure of the first plan from the left in a yellow dress with a red bag over his arm going up the steps became Lydia Timoshenko (1903-1976), known artist and a wife of Yevgeny Kibrik (1906-1978), People's artist of the USSR.

Portrayed on the left in a blue suit and straw hat is Samokhvalov’s friend, the artist Evgeny Kibrik, who in 1920s was a student of Pavel Filonov, as well as Samkhvalov himself, also in a straw hat and just visible over Kibrik’s shoulder.

Alexander Samokhvalov since the 1920s was familiar with Lydia Tymoshenko and Yevgeny Kibrik and maintained friendship with them. In the 1920s, together with Tymoshenko, he was a member of the famous Leningrad association "Circle of Artists" (Krug Khudozhnikov) (1926-1932). The first husband of Lydia Timoshenko was artist David Zagoskin (1900-1942), in 1926-1930 also a member of the association "Circle of Artists".

The optimism and joy of the scene stem from the overall mood during the Thaw of the post-Stalinist period and is delightfully conveyed by Samokhvalov in the picture.

Lydia Timoshenko. 1920s

For the first time painting Cafe Gurzuf was exhibited in 1960 at the grand Annual Exhibition of works by the leningrad artists of 1960 in the Exhibition Halls of the Leningrad Union of Artists.[1]

In 1963 painting Cafe Gurzuf was shown at the first solo exhibition of Alexander Samokhvalov in Leningrad in the Exhibition Halls of the Leningrad Union of Artists dedicated to the seventieth Anniversary of the artist.[2]

After the death of Alexander Samokhvalov the painting Cafe Gurzuf was kept by the artist's widow up to the early 1990s then was sold into the private collection.

In 1994, after a long break time picture Cafe Gurzuf was shown again in the Leningrad Union of Artists at the exhibition of The Paintings of 1950-1980s by the Leningrad School artists.[3]

In 2012 painting Cafe Gurzuf was exhibited in "Manezh" Central Exhibition Hall on The Art Fair devoted to 80th Anniversary of Saint-Petersburg Union of Artists. The painting was reproduced in the exhibition catalog.[4]

In 2007 Cafe Gurzuf was published in the book Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School by Sergei V. Ivanov,[5] in Russian and English.

The History of this painting was described in the article by S. Ivanov, dedicated to the wife of the artist Maria Kleshchar-Samokhvalova (1915-2000) and published in 2015 to her Centenary Anniversary.[6]

• In the Sun painting
• Artist Alexander Nikolayevich Samokhvalov (1894—1971)

• Выставка произведений ленинградских художников 1960 года. Каталог. Л., Художник РСФСР, 1963. C.16.
• Александр Николаевич Самохвалов. Выставка произведений. Каталог. Л., Художник РСФСР, 1963. C.20.
• Справочник членов Ленинградской организации Союза художников РСФСР. Л., Художник РСФСР, 1987. C.57.
• Ленинградские художники. Живопись 1950—1980 годов. Каталог. Санкт-Петербург, Выставочный центр ПСХ, 1994. C.4.
• Самохвалов Александр Николаевич. В годы беспокойного солнца. Санкт-Петербург, Всемирное слово, 1996.
• Alexander Samokhvalov. Cafe Gurzuf. 1956 / Sergei Ivanov. Unknown socialist realism. The Leningrad school. Saint-Petersburg, NP—Print, 2007. P.2-3, 342, 346, 351, 354, 369, 394, 416, 435, 442. ISBN 5-901724-21-6, ISBN 978-5-901724-21-7.
• Самохвалов А. Кафе Гурзуф. 1956. / 80 Лет Санкт-Петербургскому Союзу художников. Юбилейная выставка. СПб, 2012. С.210.
• Иванов С. В. Что движет солнце и светила. // Петербургские искусствоведческие тетради. Вып. 34. СПб, 2015. С.228-232.