Media About Us

The ‘Naked’ and ‘Condemned’. One Hundred Years of Russian Art at SOVCOM. Tatyana Markina, the Kommersant - Weekend, #34, April 20, 2007.

The Sovcom Art Gallery that fully deserves the name of an auction house holds a large auction. Two hundred and fifty lots – paintings and graphical works from the late 19th to the late 20th century, china, bronze, and silver.
The top lot of the collection is Alexander Volkov’s canvas Wedding painted in 1927. The Sovcom Art Gallery that fully deserves the name of an auction house holds a large auction. Two hundred and fifty lots – paintings and graphical works from the late 19th to the late 20th century, china, bronze, and silver.
The top lot of the collection is Alexander Volkov’s canvas Wedding painted in 1927. A good artist and a well-chosen moment – these components of success have resulted in $450,000 -650,000 of estimate. Alexander Volkov, who lived in Tashkent and is famous for his Pomegranate Teahouse from the State Tretyakov Gallery, is an author of dozens of avant-garde canvases, half of which is stored in museums and the other half – in the artist’s family. It is here and now that these halves have been reunited – Volkov’s retrospective in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the first one for forty years, finishes in two days. The person who buys the Wedding (that naturally comes from a private collection) will have to go to the State Tretyakov Gallery on April 22 where he/she will be handed over the painting right from the wall.
The Volkov’s Wedding is the highlight of the ‘Soviet’ section of the auction. The ‘Russian’ section also has a great deal to offer. As any self-respecting Russian auction, Sovcom sells Ivan Aivazovsky. Namely, his Moonlight Night (1881) – a landscape on board, as large as a postcard, but with as many effects for romantic painting as possible. A cold moonlight in the sky and its even colder reflection on the water surface, a scarlet light in the window and someone indistinct sitting on the terrace and trying to read a newspaper in the moonlight. The painting is estimated at $100,000-110,000 – at Sotheby’s they would have asked a higher price. The same can be said about Vladimir Makovsky’s Admirers of Singing – a colorful, ironic genre painting ($85,000-95,000). The power of observation and feature technique that in fact made the younger of Makovsky brothers famous (the older one is the brilliant and elegant Konstantin), are fully reflected in the painting – here is a tenor singing like a nightingale, a bass with bushy whiskers, and guests willingly listening to the home concert.
Some of the lots can boast of interesting provenance. For instance, the painting Saint Nicholas Mirlikiyskiy Shelters Three Innocent Condemned from Death. It was created by Ilya Repin’s apprentices (with the assistance of the master himself) by request of Maxim Gorky who was really fond of the I. Repin’s original from Pavel Tretyakov’s gallery. Later, Gorky donated the painting to the Arts and History Museum in Nizhny Novgorod, from which in the troublesome 1930-s the painting went to a private collection ($75,000-100,000).
Having a sufficient amount of fine works, the Sovcom auction collection on the whole makes a confused impression – among significant and highly valued works one can come across mere trifles. If the ordinary Fishes by Pavel Sokolov-Skalya at $1,100-1,700 looks worthy though not expensive, then the Naked with limp heels attributed to the V.A. Serov’s circle (at $11,000-12,000) seems a fly in the ointment.

SIGN UP FOR THE AUCTION HOUSE EMAILS ABOUT ALL OUR EVENTS