MIKHAIL KSENOFONTOVITCH SOKOLOV (1885-1947) Gerda’s Captivity. Illustration for ‘The Snow Queen’ of Hans Christian Andersen

Titled in pencil in Cyrillic (lower right, on the sheet); inscribed in pencil, ownership stamp of Igor Dichenko collection (on the reverse) watercolour, ink, whitewash on paper 29 x 20.5 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 Mikhail Ksenofontovich Sokolov was a Russian painter, graphic artist and illustrator active in the Soviet avant garde. Trained at the Stroganov Moscow State Academy of Arts and Industry, he first exhibited with the Mir iskusstva movement in 1917. After the Revolution, he taught drawing and painting in various cities while pursuing his artistic practice. In 1938 he was politically repressed and sentenced to a Siberian labor camp, from which he was released in 1943 due to illness. His body of work, including paintings, graphics and illustrations, reflects the dynamic evolution of Russian graphic art in the early twentieth century.