Basil Poustochkine, A Walk in the Woods

oil, cardboard, size 21 x 14 cm in light passepartout, nsgn.

Basil Poustochkine (1893 - 1973) is a painter, printmaker, illustrator and designer of Russian origin, who took refuge from the Bolsheviks in Poland between the wars, escaping from Soviet Russia. After the 1939 September campaign, he found himself in France, where he lived and worked until his death. During the German occupation, he shared an apartment with Polish diplomats - Mr. and Mrs. Strzałko, whose daughter confirmed on the back the authorship and provenance of the presented work from her father's collection. The artist's paintings, mostly small in size, are maintained in a post-impressionist manner and usually depict serene landscapes without staffage, intimate and sensitively painted views of the forest interior or vast landscapes with fields and meadows.