Leonide Frechkop (1897-1982) - Tournesol et coquillages

Oil on canvas depicting a sunflower & shells signed

Leonide FRECHKOP (1897-1982)

Painter, designer, engraver, decorator. In 1920, he completed his training at the Moscow Academy and won the Prix de Rome. He leaves Russia and settles in Brussels. Predilection for compositions, figures, nudes, figures of dancers and children as well as flowers. Throughout his life, he explored painting in all directions. He showed complete independence from each style and trend. A revolutionary to his core, he was no less faithful to tradition. Works at the Ixelles Museum, at the Cabinet des Estampes in Brussels.

THE PAINTER LEONIDE FRECHKOP BY MARIO DE MARCHI, KNOWLEDGE AND BEAUTY, JULY 1930.

I know few "naturists" as honest, as conscientious as this painter Léonide Frechkop, who, established with us for many years already, brought back from the depths of the great Russia where he studied, this profound sense of feeling, this serene vision of things, this ardent desire to create life without tearing it away from its delicious poetry. This visual artist with such a particular and precise vision is a relentless researcher of beautiful forms, a stubborn analyst who tries to discover in nature what is greatest: its simple beauty made of rhythm and color. At first, his art was somewhat surprising. He imposed on the elite a vision so new, a conception so essentially different from ours, that an unspeakable fear tempered the admiration of those who did not find in his works the ordinary and all too easy qualities that the paintings of artists of a wiser, but perhaps less sure, tradition.

Léonid Frechkop ignores fiery improvisation and noisy creation. He is too much of an analyst and too fine a carver of symphonies to enjoy the extravagance of the “claps of thunder” of lightning inspiration. Every new work is for him a new subject of meditation. Such a composition, such a figure, such a portrait, even such a landscape are the fruit of numerous research, of scrupulous studies where the model is analyzed and scrutinized with admirable obstinacy, unaware of discouragement.

Frechkop is one of those honest artists who wants to ignore the ease of routine. He has only one desire and one ardent desire: that of arriving at technical perfection through the laborious paths of imposed work. Nothing would seem stranger to him than having to adopt one of the artificial personalities which only find the sad sources of their poor characters in the adaptation of a genre. He is one of those complete artists who like to look for beauty wherever it can inspire a superior soul. A fine figurist, he never denied the landscapes to which he devoted admirable pages. He has the great joy of having understood the prodigious lesson of the beautiful masters of the Renaissance. With them as spiritual guides he examines the multiple detours of splendor. The lines that are dear to him, these quivering lines that he knows how to render with supreme boldness and astonishing sureness of hand are these universal lines. The sinuous curve of a body, the harmony of a happy sway, the marvelous balance of the great masses of a landscape, charm his mind.

The graphic designer's drawing and linework, however, never sacrifice color in the paintings of this artist, who knew how to achieve this delicious harmony of form and tone. Since the time when, at the Moscow School of Fine Arts, he followed the lessons of the beautiful impressionist Karovin, his palette has evolved significantly. Its color, still seemingly cold yesterday, is of such sensitivity and delicacy that only the man previously subjected to the ever-continued search for the subtleties of the prism could prune with as much science and reason the uselessness of the ranges. overloaded. This evolution that perhaps no one expected is taking place today in the painter's latest creations. Many had imagined the artist had reached this special degree of refinement that his temperament seemed unlikely to exceed. His colorful range, which previously indulged in rather muted harmonies, recalls in his latest pieces some isolated works from the previous period where oppositions of very daring tones imposed a frank color on an almost obsessive graphic. From now on the much sought-after balance seems to have been achieved and a series of still lifes attests to the transformation of vision which took place in Frechkop. The stain of color plays a preponderant role in his paintings and harmonies ignored during the first period give to compositions of rare sobriety of elements, a powerful character of life.

During a visit to the artist's studio the eye is particularly drawn to large figures in the execution of which he excels. Throughout his work, still lifes and flowers appear as entertainment. His palette lingers rather in the execution of large nudes and these delicious portraits where the female effigy finds a delicious consecration. The painter's admiration for the great Renaissance artists and particularly for the beautiful Italian figurists of the schools of Padua and Venice led him towards the search for beautiful harmonies of bodies and draperies, and his main concern always lies in the creation of perfect compositions where the figure, an essential element, finds in the accessories that surround it the delicate atmosphere that suits it.
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Auction results for Leonide FRECHKOP in Drawing-Watercolor

Dimensions: unframed: 65 cm x 50 cm

It is signed lower left and is dated 73 for 1973
has some gaps

Auction results for Leonide FRECHKOP in Painting

Leonide FRECHKOP (1897-1982)
Still Life of yellow Roses in a blue Vase

Lot N° 160
Paint
Oil/canvas
66 x 92 cm
Hammer Price: €541 (£360)
Estimate: €601 - €902 (€400 - £600)
MODERN PICTURES - INCLUDING WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF HANS SCHWARZ
06/21/2005
Bonhams
London, United Kingdom
Details
Sign
Reproduced on page 32 of the catalogue