PAUL MANSOUROFF

Provenance:
- Irene Lehr, Berlin, Auction 24, 28 April 2007, lot 376.
- Private collection Germany, bought at the above auction.

Exhibition: (presumably) St. Petersburg 1923, exhibition artists from St. Petersburg 1918-23, organized by Sorabis the province of St. Petersburg, no. 1208 (with label on the reverse).

From 1909 Paul Mansouroff visited the Stieglitz School, known for its design courses, in St. Petersburg. There, he sharpened the precision of drawing with a particular interest in the properties of lines and shapes, which continued to fascinate him throughout his career. Mansouroff, who called his works pictorial formulas, undertook a careful and almost scientific investigation of painterly methods. He was dedicated to the physical form itself and was especially interested in the vertical, considering the vertical format as the embodiment of spatial questions. From 1917 onwards Mansouroff was in close contact with many leading figures of the Russian avant-garde, including Malevich, Tatlin, Filonov and Matouchine .
The present Komposition from 1919, which was exhibited in St. Petersburg as early as 1923, dates from this significant period of Suprematism.