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Lot 293:
Description
Keywords: Cubism, Kiki, Montparnasse, French painting, Modernism, European painting, Oil on Canvas, 20th century, Lambert-Rucki, Female profile, Art history, Jazz Age, Period cubist work, Signed L. Rucki, 1927, Kiki of Montparnasse
Cubist painting, signed L. Rucki/1927, oil on canvas "Montparnasse" and dated 1927, a period cubist work. The painting features the female profile of the famous "Kiki of Montparnasse" with her trademark spit-curl. Titled on the back, Signed and dated "L. RUCKI / 1927" lower right.
Bio: Lambert-Rucki was born in Cracow, Poland in 1888. He studied at the Fine Arts Academy of Cracow before he moved to Paris in 1911. In Paris, he associated with his friend, also born in Cracow, Poland Moise Kisling, along with Modigliani, Soutine, and the other artists of Montparnasse. Lambert-Rucki exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1919, he exhibited regularly at the Salon des Indépendants beginning in 1920, the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Tuileries from 1933. He also showed with the Cubists at the Section d’Or group from 1922 to1924. He exhibited, from 1924, at the gallery of Léonce Rosenberg, Galerie l’Effort Moderne.
KIKI: Alice Ernestine Prin (2 October 1901 – 29 April 1953), nicknamed the Queen of Montparnasse and often known as Kiki de Montparnasse, was a French model, chanteuse, memoirist, and painter during the Jazz Age. She symbolized the Montparnasse quarter’s nonconformity and its rejection of the social norms of the petite bourgeoisie. Kiki became a fixture of the Montparnasse social scene, posing nude for dozens of artists, including Sanyu, Chaïm Soutine, Julien Mandel, Tsuguharu Foujita, Constant Detré, Francis Picabia, Jean Cocteau, Arno Breker, Alexander Calder, Per Krohg, Hermine David, Pablo Gargallo, and Tono Salazar, Moïse Kisling, Fernand Leger, Man Ray, and others. Some paintings of KIKI were unsigned or signed by the artists using made-up names for their various individual reasons.
Measurement: 18 x 21 1/2 in. (45.7 x 54.6 cm.)
Category: 10
Condition: No major issues noted. Wear commensurate with age.
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