23

Nicolai Ivanovich Fechin

1881-1955

Native American bust

Verdigris patinated bronze
Signed in the casting: N. Fechin; inscribed: 2 © 1951 / H.E. BRITEZ; foundry mark: Art Bronze A. Rodriguez LA
15.5" H x 6.75" W x 9. 75" D

  • Provenance:
    The Estate of Sergei Bongart
  • Notes: Celebrated Taos artist Nicolai Fechin is best known for his oil portraits of Native Americans, but he was also a woodworker and sculptor. Fechin's father was a destitute craftsman in wood and metal in Russia. When Fechin was four, he became seriously ill and was expected to die, but was restored by the touch of the Ikon of Tischinskoya. His boyhood was spent in the Volga Forest region of Western Russia where he was exposed to the Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group.

    When he was 13, Fechin received a scholarship to the Art School of Kazan, that had been founded by his grandfather. At 19, he began his studies at the Imperial Academy of Art in St. Petersburg, the pupil of Ilya Repin who had introduced contemporary Russian art to the West in 1893. Fechin graduated in 1909 and was awarded a traveling scholarship through Europe. He was called "the Tatar painter" and was an instant success in European and American exhibitions using a signature palette-knife technique. When the Bolshevik Revolution followed WWI, Fechin left Russia for America after six years of privation. He was immediately popular in New York and received many portrait commissions, including from celebrities, and won first prize for a portrait from the National Academy in 1924.

    In 1927, Fechin moved permanently to Taos, where his work focused on the local Pueblo Indian peoples. The artist was known to paint by day and sculpt, both three-dimensional works as well as architectural elements of his house, at night. Fechin's personality parallelled his artistic output. He was quick and direct, sparse in speech, and painted only from life, creating a sculptural quality to his portraiture by finishing figure's faces by moving the paint with his thumb. A master of color, Fechin had technical deftness, but limited depictions of emotion to "rugged and sober" for Native American subjects and "exuberant and pleasing" for other sitters.

    In about 1936, Fechin traveled on a sketching trip through Mexico. In 1938, he moved to Bali but was forced to return to the US at the onset of WWII. This time Fechin settled in Santa Monica where he continued to paint Southwestern subjects and sculpt as well as take portrait commissions.

    The present work was cast in Los Angeles in 1951 and comes from the collection of Sergei Bongart. Fechin's studio was immediately next door to Ukrainian emigre Sergei Bongart's studio, and the two artists were friends and enjoyed speaking together in their native Russian. In the portrait bust, Fechin returned once again to a Southwestern Native warrior subject that focused on the unique personality of the figure's face, and a prominent feather headdress.
  • Condition: With scattered scuffs and darkening/oxidation to bronze commensurate with age. Interior is filled with plaster. Exterior with two 0.5" areas of yellow paint to upper right side and to verso.

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