MARIA MIKHAILOVNA SINIAKOVA (1898-1984/85) Carnival

signed with initials in Cyrillic 'M.S.' (lower right) and annotated in Cyrillic to Ihor Dychenko 'Igoru na pamyat' [To Igor as a souvenir] (lower left), ownership stamp of Igor Dichenko collection (on the reverse) 29 X 21 cm open, 23 x 16.5 cm Provenance: Collection of Igor Dichenko (Ihor Dychenko) (1946-2015), Soviet and Ukrainian collector, art historian, and painter; one of the ideologists of the Ukrainian avant-garde, Kyiv. Private collection, Europe Maria Mikhailovna Siniakova was a pivotal figure in the Russian and Ukrainian avant-garde. Born near Kharkov, her family home became a gathering place for Futurist artists and poets like Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Boris Pasternak. She was one of the artists who introduced Futurism to Kharkov. Maria Siniakova was featured in Khlebnikov's poetry and worked as an illustrator for books by Aleksei Kruchenykh and others. In 1952, under Stalin's rule, she was expelled from the Artists' Union for her affiliation with 'Western style and had to take small jobs to survive. After being allowed back in 1958, she held her only solo exhibition in Kiev in 1969, which brought her recognition from young artists and collectors. Despite hardships, her art, combining avant-garde and realism, is now celebrated worldwide as a key part of modernist history.