ALEXANDER OSMERKIN (RUSSIAN 1892-1953) Still Life with a Beer Bottle, 1946 oil on canvas 65 x 80 cm (25 6/8 x 31 1/2 in.) signed, dated and titled in Cyrillic on verso [initials and date altered in 1975 upon emigration of family from the USSR] PROVENANCE Property of the Family of Alexander Osmerkin, to the present day. EXPERTISE The nephew of the artist, son of Rostislav Osmerkin (brother of Alexander Osmerkin), has provided a notarized letter of provenance and identity to be sold with this painting, a copy of which is available upon request. LOT NOTES Aleksandr Osmerkin was an avant-garde Soviet artist, best known as one of the members of "The Jack of Diamonds" group along Pyotr Konchalovsky, Mikhail Larionov, and Ilya Mashkov. Born in 1892 in present-day Ukraine, Osmerkin first entered the St. Petersburg Art School at the Society of Encouraging Artists at the age of 18 (where one of his classmates was Nicholas Roerich) and then the Kiev Art School, until traveling to Moscow in 1913 to study under Mashkov. The following year, Osmerkin began exhibiting with "The Jack of Diamonds" and made the acquaintances of Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, and Sergei Esenin, among others. In 1918-1947 Osmerkin was active mainly as a professor at various art institutions in St. Petersburg and Moscow (such as VKhUTEMAS and the Imperial Academy of Arts), until forced to resign from his position under accusations of formalism. Osmerkin often referred to Paul Cezanne as a major influence on his work, in addition to the Fauvists and Cubists. Still Life with a Beer Bottle exhibits these influences of Western modern art, but with Osmerkin's own expressive style, bravura brushwork, and Russian character. The table, featuring a vase of blooming roses, is set luxuriously with lobsters, sausages, cheese, a bottle of beer - foodstuffs not easily available to Osmerkin or the general public in 1946 Soviet Russia. In light of Osmerkin`s personal life - who lived through the Revolution, both World Wars, and was devastated by the execution of his friend Osip Mandelstam - this vibrant, textured painting may be seen as a response to the harsh realities of life.16000