The second half of the 19th century saw an extraordinary concentration of Russian painters in Paris. All the realist masters of the "Ambulants" group, sometimes known as the "Itinérants", passed through the City of Light. Among them were Vasili Perov, Alexei Bogolioubov, Ilya Répine, Vasili Polenov and Ivan Kramskoï.

Evgeni Ivanovitch Pospolitaki, known in France as Eugène Pospolitaki, was born in 1852 in Temriouk, in southwest Russia. At the age of 21, after training in civil engineering and construction, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. After graduating, he went to Moscow, where he stayed from 1875 to 1879, and sold his painting Le Soir (1877) to the famous Tretyakov Gallery. The following year, the artist moved to Paris, then the art capital of the world.

Sensitive to the work on light initiated by the Impressionists, he painted seasides and country landscapes with a palette more or less divided into bright tones. Back in Russia, Pospolitaki took part in the Moscow Salon of Art Lovers alongside Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov, Isaac Ilitch Levitan and Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov. He returned to Paris in 1889 and lent a painting entitled Sommet de l'Elbrouss ; - Caucase to the Universal Exhibition. On this occasion, he received an Honorable Mention. In 1892, he presented  Le mont Uzhba at the XIIth Periodical Exhibition of the Muscovite Society of Fine Arts. The following year, he moved to Yekaterinodar (Krasnodar) to teach at the first Academy of Painting for Women. In conjunction with this activity, and thanks to his father's inheritance, Pospolitaki founded the first private drawing school on the first floor of his house. The school was taken over in 1905 by one of his pupils, a certain Stupnikov. The painter then returned to Paris and tried his hand at art criticism. Four years later, in Russia, he presented a series of landscapes of the Caucasus, his favorite subject along with the seaside, at the IVth Painting Exhibition of the Society of Non-Party Artists of St. Petersburg.

Back in Paris in 1911, the artist painted and exhibited La Tour Clovis (Paris), ancienne tour de l'Abbaye Sainte-Geneviève, peinte depuis l'arrière du Panthéon. The end of Pospolitaki's life is unfortunately poorly documented, and he probably breathed his last in St. Petersburg around 1915. What remains of Pospolitaki's work is a body of paintings that focuses on the landscape genre. While the sea and the Caucasus mountains compete with each other, they are united by the brilliance of the tones used by the artist to describe them.


Evgeni Ivanovitch Pospolitaki (1852-c. 1915)
Portrait présumé de l'artiste par lui-même
Oil on canvas
Estimate: 200 - 300€


Evgeni Ivanovitch Pospolitaki (1852-c. 1915)
Reunion of two paintings
Bord de mer animé - Rochers sur la plage
Oil on canvas
Estimate: 150 - 200€


Evgeni Ivanovitch Pospolitaki (1852-c. 1915)
Reunion of two paintings
Paysage de montagne aux rochers - Lever de soleil sur les montagnes
Oil on canvas
Estimate: 200 - 300€

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January 17, 2024

For any further information, please contact
Pierre-Alban Vinquant
+33 (0)1 47 45 08 20
vinquant@aguttes.com