Owing to his comprehensive and complex oeuvre, Pavel Tchelitchew (1898-1957) is amongst the most fascinating artist personalities of the modern era. After completing his apprenticeship in Moscow and Kiev, at the beginning of the 1920s he worked as a successful stage designer in Berlin, before relocating to Paris in 1923. Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell were amongst his illustrious supporters at the time. In Paris Tchelitchew moved in the so-called 'Neo-Romantic' circles and was influenced not only by Surrealism but also by the Russian Symbolism of the turn of the century, to which he added elements of Cubism. In the 1940s, now in New York, Tchelitchew dedicated himself to 'inner landscapes' and 'x-ray' portraits of heads and bodies, streaked with glowing veins and nerve pathways. He eliminated the boundaries between the inside and the outside and dissolved the body into energy pathways. Tchelitchew experimented continually with new styles, so as to find imagery for transcendent elements, cosmic structures and philosophical concepts.
The comprehensive collection of studies, sketches and paintings created in the process constitutes an extraordinarily individual contribution to art in the modern era. This pioneering monograph of the Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew presents a comprehensive selection of his most significant paintings. The colourful versatility and striking individuality of this artist's exciting oeuvre is documented here for the first time.