Provenance:
Private Collection California to Private Collection Amity, Maine

Lot Essay:
Though often remembered for his colorful and idyllic paintings of Long Island, the Russian-American painter, poet, and publicist David Burliuk was an essential member of the European avant-garde. Considered the father of the Russian Futurist movement, Burliuk co-wrote that group’s manifesto (A Slap in the Face of Public Taste) in 1912 after graduating from the Art School in Odessa. Burliuk was a radical in an era when non-conformity had very real ramifications; events and exhibitions organized by the Futurists provoked physical violence on more than one occasion.
In 1917 Burliuk exhibited work alongside the suprematist painter Kazimir Malevich in Moscow. During the tense months that preceded the Russian Revolution Burliuk fled Russia, traveling north through Siberia before reaching Japan in 1920. Two weeks later Burliuk co-organized the first exhibition of Futurist paintings in the country. This exposure had a dramatic effect on the Japanese avant-garde at a pivotal moment. Burliuk himself was in a period of transition between 1920 and 1922. Moving from the cubist forms of his earlier geometric paintings, he found inspiration in the coastal landscapes that surrounded him. Works from this period are exceedingly rare and perhaps symbolically, the artist began signing his name using the Latin alphabet at the end of this timeframe around, abandoning the Cyrillic signature as he used on this work he’d used previously.
Even as Burliuk moved further from his native Ukraine, leaving Japan in 1922 for Canada before settling permanently in the United States, he increasingly turned back to the folk-art traditions of his homeland, a direction that also connected him to the neo-primitivist movement more often associated with fellow émigré Marc Chagall. In this way, Burliuk moved through several of the major movements in 20th century art, finding his own style and approach no matter his subject or meter.

Further Reading:
Toshiharu Omuka “David Burliuk and the Japanese Avant-Garde” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Vol 20 (1-2), 1986, pg 111-112

Daria Melnikova “What is Futurism? Russia and Japan Exchange Answers” The Art Bulletin, Vol 103, 2021, pg 89-110