Pavel Fyodorovich Tchelitchew (/ˌtʃɛˈlɪtʃɛv/Che-LIT-chev; Russian: Па́вел Фёдорович Чели́щев) (3 October [O.S. 21 September] 1898 – 31 July 1957)[2] was a Russian-born surrealist painter, set designer and costume designer.
Tchelitchew was born to an aristocratic family of landowners and was educated by private tutors.[3] Tchelitchew expressed an early interest in ballet and art.[3] His family was forced to flee Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917.[4] He studied under Aleksandra Ekster at the Kiev Academy, and after graduation worked designing and building theater sets in Odessa and later Berlin from 1920 to 1923.[5]
Tchelitchew moved to Paris in 1923 and became acquainted with Gertrude Stein and, through her, the Sitwell and Gorer families. His interest in creating multimedia experiences during this period that drew together painting, film, and dance, led to collaborations with ballet impresarioSergei Diaghilev (stage designer for OdebyLéonide Massine, 1928) and choreographer George Balanchine.[4] He and Edith Sitwell had a long-standing close friendship and they corresponded frequently. Tchelitchew painted six major portraits of Sitwell.[1]
His first U.S. show was of his drawings, along with other artists, at the newly opened Museum of Modern Art in 1930. In 1934, he moved from Paris to New York City with his partner, writer Charles Henri Ford. In New York he continued to work with Balanchine and met his greatest champion and patron, Lincoln Kirstein.[4] From 1940 to 1947, he provided illustrations for the Surrealist magazine View, edited by Ford and writer and film critic Parker Tyler.
His most significant work is the painting Hide and Seek, painted in 1940–42, and currently owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Tchelitchew's early painting was abstract in style, described as Constructivist and Futurist and influenced by his study with Aleksandra Ekster. After emigrating to Paris he became associated with the Neo-romanticism movement. He continuously experimented with new styles, eventually incorporating multiple perspectives and elements of surrealism and fantasy into his painting. As a set and costume designer, he collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev and George Balanchine, among others.
The Juggler, oil on canvas painting by Pavel Tchelitchew, 1931
Among Tchelitchew's well-known paintings are portraits of Natalia Glasko, Edith Sitwell, and Gertrude Stein and the works Phenomena (1936–1938) and Cache Cache (Hide and Seek, 1940–1942). Tchelitchew designed sets for Ode (Paris, 1928), L'Errante (Paris, 1933), Nobilissima Visione (London, 1938) and Ondine (Paris, 1939).[6] He was known for camouflaging bodies and faces into geometric lines or landscaped forms on artwork. He used abstractionism and symbolism to convey both the outer and inner appearance of the object.
Tchelitchew was openly homosexual.[1] He met the American pianist Allen Tanner in Berlin in the 1920s and the two men became lovers, moving to Paris together to pursue their artistic careers.[7] In 1934, he left Tanner for the poet Charles Henri Ford. Ford and Tchelitchew had met shortly after Ford's arrival in Paris in 1933 to publish The Young and Evil.[8]
^ abFinding aid author: Lisa Conathan (2009). "Guide to the Pavel Tchelitchew Collection". Prepared for the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
^Collection register authors: Christy Fic, Lily Key, Stephanie McGucken, Dan
Plekhov, and Malinda Triller Doran (2018). "Allen C. Tanner Papers". Prepared for the Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
