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Gouache on paper painting. Signed and attr. Leopold Survage (Russian/French, 1879-1968) on lower left corner. 18 x 13 in (45.7 x 33.0 cm). Beginning in 1917, Survage shared a studio—and a penchant for alcoholic excesses—with Amedeo Modigliani in Paris. Survage later moved to Nice and, over the next eight years, produced highly structured oils and works on paper linked together by a series of leitmotifs, repeating groups of symbolic elements - man, sea, building, flower, window, curtain, bird—as if they were protagonists in a series of moving images. The influence may have been Marc Chagall's, an artist well known for his insertions of floating couples, cows, roosters, and sundry Jewish iconography. By 1922, Survage had begun to move away from Cubism in favour of the neo-classical form. He was perhaps influenced by commissions for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, beginning with sets and costumes for Igor Stravinsky's opera buffa Mavra at the Paris Opéra in 1922. Although mainly a painter, he also produced stage, tapestry, and textile designs during this period (notably for the house of Chanel in 1933). Toward the end of the 1930s, as a result of his contact with André Masson, Survage became increasingly charmed by symbols and mysticism. The curvilinear forms that had previously dominated his compositions came, once again, under the control of geometric structure.
Survage was inducted into France's Légion d'Honneur in 1963. He died on 31 October 1968.