VLADIMIR OSIPOVICH ROSKIN (RUSSIAN 1896-1984) Still Life with a White Tablecloth and Pears , 1918 oil on canvas 97 x 79.5 cm (38 1/4 x 31 3/8 in.) signed and dated on verso Expertise Accompanied by a letter of expertise from the Grabar Art Conservation Center by A. Kiselyova and Y. Rybakova, 2000 (available upon request) LOT NOTES Vladimir Roskin was born in Moscow on May 17th, 1896. The future Soviet artist and master of propaganda posters studied at the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts and the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Roskin was a student of Rerberg from 1913-1914, and studied with Mashkov from 1915-1917. After the Revolution (1917), he became an art instructor at the Department of the State Education and travelled throughout Russia giving lectures on Modern Art. He also picked Avant-garde works by Malevich, Chagall, Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Stepanova and others for new museums as a representations of the new left movement. At the same time, Vladimir Mayakovsky invited Roskin to collaborate on the ROSTA Posters (also known as ROSTA Windows). Roskin took part in many exhibitions while also working as a decorator on theater plays by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Yuri Olesha, and Alexey Tolstoy. In 1928, Vladimir Roskin and El Lissitzky participated in the International Print Exhibition in Koln. As an active member of international art community, Roskin worked at international art fairs in London (1930), Leipzig (1932), the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) in Paris (1937), where he won a Grand Prix, and the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, among others. During World War II, Roskin worked at exhibitions that praised Red Army and the freeing Soviet cities. He lost his son in this war. After the war Roskin became the Director of the Soviet Visual and Applied Arts Committee. However, in 1967, he publicly expressed his support for Oskar Rabin and was fired from the position. Vladimir Roskin died in Moscow in 1984. Start Price : 60000