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[RIGA UNDER NAZIS] Bogdanoff-Belsky. Leben und werk des russischen Malers [The Life and Work of the Russian Artist]

Ligers, Z.

Item #2823

Riga: Riger Kreidepapierfabrik, 1942 (1943 on the title page). 24 p., 13 l.ill. 49x35 cm. Original illustrated cardboard. Original illustrated dustjacket in protective mylar. Overall in very good condition. Copy bears the inscription in Russian by a Russian DP, signed December, 1951, Munchen ‘A.Bogdanov’, who gave this book to a friend as a Christmas present as a reminder of ‘ancient, irretrievable, snow-white’ Russia.

First and only edition. 1 of 800 copies printed. Rare art album, printed in Riga during the Nazi administration, that lasted from 1941 to 1944.

Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky (1868-1945) was a Russian painter, a proponent of "democratic realism," a major figure among St. Petersburg artists of the counter-reform and Silver Age, a teacher, and a master of genre painting on peasant themes. He also worked as a portraitist. He was a member of several prominent artists' societies, including the Peredvizhniki (from 1895) and the Kuindzhi Society (he was one of the founders and chairman from 1913 to 1918). Bogdanov- Belsky painted primarily genre scenes, particularly depicting the education of peasant children, portraits, and impressionist landscape studies. He immigrated to Latvia after revolution of 1917. He was actively involved in local artistic life and was awarded the Latvian Order of the Three Stars. During World War II, he remained in Latvia, first after its annexation by the USSR and then after the Nazi invasion. In 1944, allegedly for health reasons, he was transferred to Berlin; he died there on February 19, 1945, during the bombing of the German capital during an air raid.

This album became the last lifetime publication on Bogdanov-Belsky. Rare.

Worldcat shows copies at Brigham Young and Princeton Universities, NYPL.

Price: $1,200.00