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Pavel Tchelitchew | Abstract /Surrealist painter

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Pavel Tchelitchew /Па́вел Фёдорович Чели́щев (1898-1957), Russian-born painter🎨 and stage designer. Born in Moscow. In early youth made drawings influenced by the macabre Romanticism of Doré and Vrubel. Moved in 1918 after the Revolution to Kiev.
Was encouraged by Alexandra Exter; attended courses at Kiev Academy and received private lessons from Tchakrigine and the painter and stage designer Rabinovitch. Painted in an abstract🎨 style.
Left Russia in 1920 and spent 1921-3 in Berlin, where he had considerable success as a designer for the theatre and opera. Moved to Paris in 1923. Began to paint figures and portraits in restrained colours and with an air of reverie.


Exhibited with Bérard, Eugène Berman and others at the Galerie Druet, Paris, in 1926, he and his friends becoming known as Neo-Romantics; first one-man exhibition at the Claridge Gallery, London, 1928.
Designed sets and costumes for Diaghilev's Ode 1928 and other ballets and plays. Made some works akin to Surrealism and with violent distortions of perspective.
Settled in the USA in 1934, but continued until the outbreak of war to spend the summers in Europe. Period of metamorphic works, followed by 'interior landscapes' of the human body and finally by space compositions. Lived mainly in Italy from 1949; died in Rome. | Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art













Pavel Tchelitchew / Па́вел Фёдорович Чели́щев (1898-1957) è stato un pittore Russo, surrealista, scenografo e costumista. Lascio' la Russia nel 1920, visse a Berlino, e si trasferì a Parigi nel 1923.
A Parigi Tchelitchew conobbe Gertrude Stein ed, attraverso lei, le famiglie Sitwell e Gorer. Lui e Edith Sitwell ebbero una lunga amicizia.
La sua prima mostra negli Stati Uniti di suoi disegni, insieme ad altri artisti,fu nell'ambito dell'apertura- allora recente- del Museum of Modern Art nel 1930. I dipinti del primo Tchelitchew era astratti nello stile. Fu un futurista e costruttivista, influenzato dal suo studio con Aleksandra Ekster a Kiev.
Dopo essere emigrato a Parigi, si associò al movimento del neoromanticismo, ,ma continuamente sperimento' nuovi stili, integrando molteplici prospettive ed elementi di surrealismo e fantasia nella sua pittura. In qualità di scenografo e costumista, collaboro' con Serge Diaghliev e George Balanchine, tra gli altri.