"*POGEDAIEFF, GEORGE (1894-1977) Folder with Illustrations for The Steppe by A. Chekhov containing 50 preparatory sketches, 24 finished illustration, one page with coat of arms, also includes the artist's hand-written notebook, all but one signed, mostly with intials Mostly black crayon and charcoal on paper, some pencil on paper, the largest preparatory sketch measuring 28 by 21.5 cm., the smallest 14 by 10 cm., each illustration measuring 22 by 17 cm. Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist's daughter by the previous owner. Thence by the descent. Private collection, Switzerland. The series of illustrations for Chekhov's novel The Steppe presented here for auction was dedicated by George Pogedaieff to his brother who had died tragically. On the last sheet of the series we read the artist's handwritten words: “I completed these illustrations on the day of the Spring equinox in the year nineteen hundred and sixty four and dedicate them with love to the memory of my poor brother, who had not outlived all his joy on earth”. This poignant inscription conveys the personal element and significance for Pogedaieff of his work on the creation of these graphic compositions. The artist first started making illustration for Russian classics in Paris during the Nazi occupation. At this difficult time the great classics of Russian literature became a kind of outlet for Pogedaieff, an opportunity to immerse himself in the world of his childhood, the society and life of prerevolutionary Russia. Executing captivating suites of pencil drawings of a forgotten era, and recreating the natural world and human types of his distant homeland, Pogedaieff illustrated the literary works of Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov and Dostoevsky with no expectation of publication, working for himself and dedicating his labours to those close to him, such as his daughter Olga, his wife or his brother. The artist continued this work after the war, illustrating the Apocalypse and expanding the range of literary works to include the French novels of P. Claudel. In his post-war works, partly encouraged by the success of his recent graphic series, Pogedaieff was even more attracted to the clarity of the form of illustration that he had found. Refined graphite pencil drawing seemed to him created especially for the purpose of conveying microscopic details, ephemeral, “musical” nuances of feeling, which were so cherished by the art of the first half of the 20th century. Depicting Chekhov's heroes — little Egorushka riding on a bale of ""wool across the endless steppe from his hometown of N. to the distant and frightening unknown of the provincial school; the peasant drovers; the innkeeper Moisei Moiseich throwing his hands up"" in the air, and the Varlamov shepherds with their vicious steppe dogs — the artist comes extraordinarily close to Chekhov's poetics. His images of literary heroes and sketches of the steppe storm moving over the carts draw us in with their special warmth and create a coherent artistic impression despite their fragmentary nature. Following Chekhov, Pogedaieff combines two elements in his drawings, two artistic spheres which are fully merged and balanced only in a very few great talents able to achieve such equilibrium. He depicts both nature and the human world with equal affection. This quality of Chekhov's story is conveyed in the illustrations with extraordinary accuracy. Despite the striking character and diversity of the human types, nature is not a mere accessory here, not a decoration or background, but part of life itself, the action itself of The Steppe. This is a sublime melody in which human voices sometimes sound as individual chords, sometimes fade away. The artist and the writer do not see nature purely from an aesthetic point of view: a genuine artist needs more than this. Many small fine sketches are scattered on all the sheets of the series, showing his subtle powers of observation. At the same time, in the realistic and naturalistic composition, Pogedaieff adds an element of irreality in which people and events are immersed. His figures are often exaggeratedly large and perspective is displaced. This characteristic device of the Russian school of drawing owes much to icon painting, woodcuts and shop signs. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Pogedaieff inscribed his drawings. One or two lines taken from the text refer the viewer not to the general imagery of the Chekhov novel, but directly to specific fragments of text. This inner kinship allows us even now to see the free poetry of the steppe landscapes in Pogedaieff 's illustrations, the ethnographic and historical fidelity to the era, the sensitively captured “flow of time” and the spirit of the “accursed” questions of post-war existence, the anticipation of ""which we so value in Chekhov today."""""""