(Moscow 1886–1939 Paris)
Russian Cabaret, 1916, signed in cyrillic and dated 1916, oil on canvas (relined), 205.6 x 88.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Dolf Selbach collection
Private Collection Berlin, Germany – acquired from the above in 2011

Literature:
R. Antipova: The Pskov Exhibition of Boris Grigoriev, Moscow, Astrea 2015 (Chronology) [in Russian]

Exhibited:
1923, Exposition du Groupe artistes russes Mir Isskousstva. Société Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, catalogue no. 22: Cabaret russe, Saint-Pétersbourg 1916 (most likely)

On demand:
Results of the investigation in the laboratory for art-technological investigations of the Institute for Restoration and Conservation Science, Cologne (CICS), 2021

Acknowledgments:
We are grateful to Tamara A. Galeeva (Ekaterinburg), Svetlana A. Pisareva (Moscow) and Yulia V. Rybakova (Moscow) for advice based on the submitted photos and results of the examination in the Laboratory for Art Technological Investigations of the Institute for Restoration and Conservation Science, Cologne (CICS), 2021.

We are grateful to Dr. Olga Sugrobova-Roth for her scientific assistance.

“I realised something once for all. A line, quite simply a curve drawn from the neck to the heel, a continuous line. That's the line [...] I've been dreaming about.”

Boris Grigoriev (1918)

In the first three months of 1916, Boris Grigoriev, together with his colleagues Sergei Sudeikin and Alexander Yakovlev, worked on the large canvases for the decoration of the literary-artistic cabaret “Rest of the Comedians” in Petrograd (as St. Petersburg was called after the outbreak of the First World War). The cabaret, established in the basement of the house on the Moika embankment, existed until 1919, and the paintings were most likely lost in the great flood of 1924.
The present painting is closely related to Grigoriev’s work for this cabaret. Stylistically, it falls into a relatively short creative period (1916–19) in which Grigoriev briefly tried a neo-classicist aesthetic. The dimensions show his preference at that time for large paintings and for an elongated format, which works well with the tall stature and slenderness of the two female figures.
The silhouette of the blonde woman in the foreground embodies Grigoriev’s ideal of feminine beauty. Her sensuous features recall Sudeikin’s first wife Olga Glebova, the mermaid-eyed “St. Petersburg Columbine” who appeared as a dancer in the “Rest of the Comedians.” As “gorgeous blonde, pink, slim” she remained in the memories of her contemporaries. This can also be seen in Glebova’s photos from 1916, where her hairstyles and headdresses are often complemented with a long feather, just as Grigoriev depicts in the painting.
Eroticism occupied an important place in Grigoriev’s artistic work from the mid-1910s. He published corresponding paintings and drawings in the volume “Intimité” in 1918. The lines of “Russian Cabaret” suggest a close connection to the drawings in this volume. Unusual for Grigoriev, however, is the slight allusion to same-sex love that can be seen in the painting. In the memoirs of her contemporaries, speculation about Glebova’s bisexuality can be found. However, the work is not a portrait of Olga Glebova; rather, Grigoriev wanted to reproduce a particular cabaret atmosphere in the woman’s image, which is as seductive as it is fleeting.
The almost transparent figures stand in front of a drapery with large floral ornaments, a motif Grigoriev often used at this time.
The thin-layered painting is associated with Grigoriev’s technique in the “Rest of the Comedians”; it is characteristic of his other easel paintings of this period (see the portrait of the regular guest in the “Rest of the Comedians” Yakov Israilevich, c. 1916; the portrait of the art collector Alexander Korovin, 1916, both in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg).
Grigoriev’s escape from revolutionary Russia was spectacular: in September 1919, the artist crossed the Gulf of Finland in a boat with his wife and five-year-old son, arriving in Berlin in November. The circumstances of this escape did not allow him to take any of his works with him. It still remains unclear who helped Grigoriev, however somehow the artist managed to get some of his works out of Russia. Thus, his self-portrait exhibited in Petrograd in 1917 was already shown in Berlin in the winter of 1919/20.