At the piano

Udalʹtsova, Nadezhda (1886-1961)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1915

Height:

106.7 cm  (42 in.)

Width:

89.0 cm  (35 1/16 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

School:

Cubism

Description

In this painting, one can discern a fragmented-and-repeated image of a person playing a piano, along with suggestions of pages of music, the name "BACH" in bold lettering, and lively colorful geometric shapes containing other references to musical ideas.
Commentary from museum website:
Many elements of At the Piano register Nadezhda Andreevna Udaltsova’s engagement with the formal strategies of Cubism that she studied in Paris: for example, the representation of objects and space as faceted planes; the inclusion of prominent lettering; and the articulation of edges through strong contrasts of light and dark. The painting also thematically relates to the interests of the Cubists, who often evoked music in their works. However, the dynamism of Udaltsova’s facets and rhythmically distributed parallel lines, as well as her selection of a domestic scene as her subject, distinguishes this piece from the work of her Cubist colleagues.

Iconclass

48C7333
pianoforte
48C7523
one person playing keyboard instrument

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Pianoforte [2299] (cubist representation)

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Collection of the Société Anonyme: Museum of Modern Art 1920 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1950) 38-39.

Herbert, Robert L., Eleanor S. Apter, and Elise K. Kenney. The Société Anonyme and the Dreier Bequest at Yale University: A catalogue raisonné (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984) 666, no. 695.

Bohan, Ruth L., et al. The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, ed. Jennifer Gross (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2006) 58, 184, fig. 15.

Drutt, Matthew J. In search of 0,10: The last futurist exhibition of painting (Basel, Switzerland: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2015) 54, 210–11, no. 145.

RIdIM record id

6158