This is the second Sotheby’s exposition at the Khanenko Museum. The previous one took place two years ago and included the Ukrainian Oleksandra Ekster’s A Woman with a Bird (this year her Venice was sold for 1,000,000 in London). This year’s exposition shows a considerably higher percentage of Ukrainian artists. In fact, all the paintings on display were created by Odesa modernist artists at the beginning of the century, among them Amshei Nurenberg, Micail Gershenfeld, Isaac Malik, Theophil Fraerman, Sigismund Olesevich, and Israel Mexin. At one time they were all members of the French Societe des Independants and drew inspiration from Matisse, Gauguin, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Rouault, and German Impressionists. Some knew them personally (Fraerman knew Matisse, worked with Degas and spent time in Rodin’s studio, while Nurenberg studied at private Parisian academies and shared a studio with Chagall). Others could explore works by these world’s giants at the Izdebsky Salon exhibits in Odesa.
Joe Vickery, chief of Sotheby’s Russian art section in London, told a press conference that the works currently on display are extremely valuable and rare; they appear on the market very seldom.
All these pictures are from the philanthropist Yakov Pereman’s collection. In the 1920s he transferred it to Palestine and it is stored there at present. In Ukraine few if any remember the names of these and many other artists, fortunately except for professional art historians. This exhibit is the first step in the direction of returning these Odesa artists and their works to Ukraine.
Needless to say, this exhibit is not only an educational project. Like the previous one, it is meant to attract Ukrainian collectors’ attention to the Odesa artists (according to Joe Vickery, these collectors have of late been increasingly active at Sotheby’s auctions). Interestingly, all 14 modernist canvases are for sale as a single lot. “This is the right decision,” says Olena Zhyvkova, head of the Western Art Department at the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum, “because they wouldn’t have as much historical and cultural value if offered separately as they do put together. All these pictures represent a significant phenomenon in our history and this is precisely why they have to be returned to Ukraine. It would be good if an art patron bought them for the Western and Eastern Art Museum in Odesa.”
Mikhail Kamensky, managing director of Sotheby’s Moscow Office, stressed that “this time we brought to Kyiv works of art that were taken away from Ukraine at the beginning of the previous century. Now all this must return to the native land.” London auction (April 22) will show whether these paintings will return to Ukraine or end up in a foreign private collection, or at a foreign estate of a Ukrainian art collector.
