Robert Rafailowitsch Falk

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Robert Falk ( Russian Роберт Рафаилович Фальк * October 15 jul. / 27. October  1886 greg. In Moscow ; † 1. October 1958 ) was a Russian-Jewish painter who major impetus of Cézanne's works received and in turn considerable influence exercised on young painters. After the Second World War he was increasingly caught in the crossfire of the Soviet authorities.

life and work

Robert Falk was the son of the lawyer, chess master and journalist Rafail Alexandrowitsch Falk . Originally he wanted to be a musician, but then studied art in Moscow, among others with Konstantin Alexejewitsch Korowin . From 1906 he took part in exhibitions, in 1910 for the first time as part of the Karo-Bube group , although he was rather remote from Cubism and Dadaism . During this time he was a drawing teacher at elementary schools and also traveled to Italy. Falk painted landscapes, portraits (including many self-portraits), buildings and still lifes. In a letter he states:

“Cézanne's works are not images of life - they are life itself in wonderful, valuable optical-plastic forms. The Cubists consider themselves his heirs. I think they have only usurped his art. I have to admit that I don't like abstract painting. Abstraction leads even the most talented painter to a scheme, to arbitrariness, to chance. "

Ada Rajew and Julija Wiktorowna Didenko, however, attest to Falk that, in contrast to the other Russian “Cézannists”, he “achieved his own quality of lyrical contemplation and lightness of forms and colors, so in Krym. Piramidal'nyj topol (1915), where the cool shades of light green, violet, pink and blue seem to evoke the life of nature. ”His moving application of paint, which, in interplay with shifted forms, is reminiscent of light-containing mosaics ( Natjurmort s podswetschnikom , 1917), let the surface vibrate and give the pictures a special musicality. Falk was happy to portray his companions. He was married four times, most recently to the translator and teacher Angelina Wassiljewna Schtschekin-Krotowa (1910–1992), who was dedicated to the care of his work and memory.

Parisian evenings

Soon after the October Revolution (1917), Falk worked in the Moscow College of Fine Arts , headed by Vladimir Evgrafowitsch Tatlin , and was appointed professor of painting. In 1922 he took part in the First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin. From 1924 he also designed many stage sets, some abroad. From 1928 to the end of 1937 he lived entirely in Paris, where he communicated with his former teacher Korovin and other Russian emigrants, but also interacted with Pierre Bonnard , Edouard Vuillard and Chaim Soutine . He was doing quite well, "but money and fame left him indifferent", assures Ilja Ehrenburg , who gives a portrait of Falk in his memoir. He describes the friend as “tall, gaunt, with a sad, even desolate face, over which a faint, shameful smile sometimes flickered.” Falk always worked “concentrated, persistent, fanatical”, often repeatedly on the same subject . In each of his pictures he had to overcome his "painterly heaviness on the tongue". In front of the screen - otherwise not - he was a " hermit ". “Robert Falk's Paris is heavy, dim, gray, purple. It is a tragic evening before Paris. ”Ehrenburg calls Falk's“ deep ”portraits, which appear mainly through the color,“ plastic biography ”.

In disgrace

Falk spent the war years, evacuated from Moscow, in Samarqand in Central Asia . Even afterwards he stayed in the country more often, and also made some trips ( Crimea , Moldova , Lithuania ). He also worked for Belarusian Jewish theaters until they closed in 1948. Around 1947 official agencies and editorial offices began to denounce him “absurdly” (Ehrenburg) as a “formalist” . In 1950 he was banned from exhibiting, which he partially undermined by performing “Sunday concerts” in his studio. Ehrenburg writes that the attempt to lead Falk back on the right path, perhaps through financial drying up, could only have failed. "Not once in my life have I met an artist who would have been so indifferent to the goods of this world, comfort and prosperity." Falk became impoverished - and continued to paint indomitably. “The pictures piled up in the long, gloomy studio on the Moskva. When you look at the old works of some painters, you think with sadness of the luminous freshness and purity of the works from their youth. Falk, on the other hand, continued to grow - until he died. "Rajew / Didenko say similarly:

“In Falk's late work, in all genres, there are works that have the quality of metaphors of being in the combination of simplicity in the motif and perfect color-plastic development. These include still lifes such as Natjurmort s negritjanskoj skul'pturoj (1944) and Kartoska (1955), landscapes such as Sima w Sagorske and Sagorsk. Solnetschnyj den (both 1955), the portrait of his wife V beloj sali (1947) and the self-portrait Awtoportret w krasnoj feske (1957), in which Falk's fundamental humanism beyond Soviet norms is embodied. "

Emaciated, ailing and almost forgotten, Falk died at the age of 71. It was not until 1972 that its shadowy existence in Soviet museums was broken by an exhibition in the Leningrad Russian Museum . Today, as can be seen in auction reports (2011), Falk paintings are traded between 10,000 and 150,000 euros - each.

thaw

His friend Ehrenburg memorialized him in the novel Tauwetter published in 1956 . He endowed his character Saburow there with a passionate love for painting, an adventurous life and even some thoughts from Falk. "I read this chapter to Robert Falk before I turned the manuscript in to the journal, and it was approved," he writes in his memoir.

Literature (selection)

  • Alain Besancon: RR Falk , in: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 3 , No. 4, 1962, pp. 564-581
  • Dimitrii Sarabjanow: Robert Falk , Dresden 1974 (in German)
  • AV Scekin-Krotova (ed.): RR Falk , Moscow 1981
  • Elena Basner: Robert Falk , State Russian Museum St. Petersburg, 1992
  • Ada Raev, Julija Viktorovna Didenko: Fal'k, Robert Rafailovič . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 36, Saur, Munich a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-598-22776-0 , p. 399. (with a detailed list of works and literature).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from Ilja Ehrenburg: Menschen Jahre Leben (Memoirs), special edition Munich 1962/65, Volume II, page 382
  2. ^ Ada Raev, Julija Viktorovna Didenko: Fal'k, Robert Rafailovič . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 36, Saur, Munich a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-598-22776-0 , p. 399.
  3. ↑ Ehrenburg 1962/65, Volume II, pages 379-384
  4. ↑ Ehrenburg 1962/65, Volume II, pages 384–385
  5. ↑ AKL 2009
  6. ^ The Biographical Dictionary of the Former Soviet Union , London 1992
  7. ↑ This time quoted from the Volk-und-Welt edition, East Berlin 1978 - 1990, Volume 3, page 554

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Falk, Robert Rafailowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Фальк, Роберт Рафаилович (Russian); Falʹk, Robert Rafailovič
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian painter
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 1958
Place of death Moscow