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Lot Essay
Leon Gaspard's most distinctive works are richly colored tapestries of villages, exotic peoples, and snow-filled landscapes. While eventually settling in Taos, New Mexico, Gaspard recorded his extensive travels in his art, which includes depictions of his native Russia and the Far East, as well as the American Southwest.
Born in Vitebsk, Russia, in 1882, Gaspard first traveled with his father, a fur trader, who took the future artist to many remote and picturesque villages in the interior of his native country. In time, Gaspard departed for Paris, where he completed his formal artistic training, and where he met Evelyn Adell, an American who would become his wife in 1909. Following their marriage, they embarked on a two-year journey on horseback through the Russian provinces, eventually reaching Irkutsk, in eastern Siberia.
La Ville de Pauvres, completed just a year after their return, almost certainly drew its inspiration from the artist's wedding journey, as well as his childhood adventures with his father. The format, a triptych traditionally associated with religious paintings, is nearly unique in Gaspard's oeuvre, and appears only a few other times in his art. The painting's bright, jewel-like colors, and its painterly technique depicting a throng of peasants in a busy street, mark this as one of the artist's most dramatic and distinctive representations of village life in Russia.
Born in Vitebsk, Russia, in 1882, Gaspard first traveled with his father, a fur trader, who took the future artist to many remote and picturesque villages in the interior of his native country. In time, Gaspard departed for Paris, where he completed his formal artistic training, and where he met Evelyn Adell, an American who would become his wife in 1909. Following their marriage, they embarked on a two-year journey on horseback through the Russian provinces, eventually reaching Irkutsk, in eastern Siberia.
La Ville de Pauvres, completed just a year after their return, almost certainly drew its inspiration from the artist's wedding journey, as well as his childhood adventures with his father. The format, a triptych traditionally associated with religious paintings, is nearly unique in Gaspard's oeuvre, and appears only a few other times in his art. The painting's bright, jewel-like colors, and its painterly technique depicting a throng of peasants in a busy street, mark this as one of the artist's most dramatic and distinctive representations of village life in Russia.