Attrib. Mstislav Dobuzhinsky Theatrical Set Design

An original 1930s watercolour painting, Attrib. Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Theatrical Set Design.

This striking and beautiful work is attributed to the important Russian-Lithuanian artist Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875–1957). Dobuzhinsky was at the centre of various cultural and artistic circles of early 20th-century Russia: through his association with the avant-garde World of Art (Mir iskusstva) movement and other Russian artists such as Alexandre Benois and Konstantin Somov; through his theatre work with seminal actor/director Stanislavsky; and his association with Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. The work, in watercolour and graphite on card, displays Dobuzhinsky imaginative and distinctive approach to set design—the vision here at once ethereal and emotionally charged but also demonstrating the artist’s strong stage sense and skills in the graphic arts, with its considered structure and symmetry.

Dobuzhinsky worked for theatre at various points in his long career: from 1907 he collaborated with Moscow Art Theatre working with Stanislavsky; in 1924 he worked in Lithuania designing sets for more than seventy productions, the best of them Russian and world classics, including Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Mozart and Shakespeare; and from 1939 he produced designs for Mikhail Chekhov Theatre in America. It is unclear from which period this painting dates, but the format and palette resemble designs Dobuzhinsky was producing in the 1930s and 1940s.

The painting is accompanied by historic dealer’s/collector’s notes as shown, which suggest an interesting provenance and starting point for further research. The notes comprise the attribution, notes relating to what appears to be a V&A archive reference, and a copy of an image by Konstantin Somov from the Courtauld Witt Library 1974.