NICOLAS TARKHOFF

(1871-1930)

Trois tournesols

Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Dr. Oscar Ghez. This work will be included in the forthcoming Nicolas Tarkhoff catalogue raisonné, currently being prepared by the Nicolas Tarkhoff Committee. We are grateful to Guy Abot, Director of the Nicolas Tarkhoff Committee, for his assistance cataloguing this work.

Provenance
Dr. Oscar Ghez Collection, Geneva, no. 14368.
Private collection, Geneva (acquired from the above in 1989).
Private collection, Geneva (by descent from the above).

Exhibited
Geneva, Musée du Petit Palais, 1980 - 2000.
San Francisco, Harcourts Gallery, Nicolas Tarkhoff, A retrospective exhibition, September – November 1989, no. 25.


Nicolas Tarkhoff moved to Paris in 1899 where he attended the École des Beaux-Arts, and soon after, started exhibiting his paintings at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne. His artwork was regarded as pioneering and extremely desirable, and Tarkhoff was granted solo exhibitions at Galerie Ambroise Vollard (where Cézanne, Gauguin, and Renoir had all exhibited) in 1906 and Galerie Drouet in 1909. As early as 1910, an extraordinary list of collectors had acquired his work, including Sergei Shchukin and Sergei Diaghilev. The artist kept ties with Moscow and participated in several exhibitions in Russia; his pictures were included in the Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) exhibitions of 1899, 1911 and 1913. He also exhibited seventeen paintings in Sergei Diaghilev's landmark exhibition of Russian art, Two Centuries of Russian Painting and Sculpture, in October 1906 at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Tarkhoff's distinct style aligned him closely with the Fauves, a style indebted to Impressionistic canons as it often stressed varying qualities of light, visibly broad brushwork and an exploration of pure colour. He was continually influenced by Van Gogh and Post-Impressionism, as evidenced by his oft chosen themes of rural landscapes and floral still-life compositions. In particular, Tarkhoff held a fondness for sunflowers, utilising them as a constant vibrant environment through which to develop his Impressionistic style. In this, Tarkhoff was influenced by the writings of Edmond Duranty, who wrote in his 1876 article 'La Nouvelle Peinture': 'Painters must try to capture the motion... and render the shaking of the leaves, the glistening of the water and the vibration of the sun-soaked air...' (Duranty quoted in N. Tarkhoff, Impressions of a Russian Painter in Paris, Ahlen, 1999, pp. 65-66).