Nicolai Fechin
1881-1955
Consuelo
MEDIUM: Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS: 13 x 12 inches
Signed lower Left
SOLD FOR: $252,000.00
Including Buyers Premium
2026 - APRIL,
LOT 314
Additional Information
Provenance:
Dan May & Associates, Santa Fe, NM, 1989
Altermann & Morris, Santa Fe, NM, 1999
Regina Giesecke Collection, Ballinger, TX
Sold by descent in family partnership, Scottsdale, AZ
Exhibitions:
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK, 1991.
Nicolai Fechin filled his paintings with raw and explosive brushwork, a luminous sense for light and shadow, and faces that could almost pierce the plane between the canvas and the real world. The Taos Art Museum notes, “Fechin is one of the most important portrait painters of the 20th century.” The museum, which is located in his home and studio, may be biased, but his contemporaries of the first half of the 20th century agreed. Often considered an “artist’s artist,” Fechin was taught under famous Russian painter Ilya Repin. In 1923, he moved from Russia to New York City, where he had sponsors who believed in his career and clients who commissioned portraits. Illness made him seek out a warmer climate in 1926, which is how he ended up in Taos, New Mexico. Once in the Southwest, the painter was smitten by the culture and people.