Provenance
The artist, Paris and later New York; James Thrall Soby (1906–1979), New York, probably acquired directly from the artist, by 1942 [correspondence with The Museum of Modern Art, Jan. 27, 2025, copy in curatorial object file]. Durlacher Brothers, New York, by 1965; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1965.
Accession Number
23098
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
100.4 × 65.1 cm (39 1/2 × 25 5/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Kate S. Brewster Fund
Background & Context
Background Story
Pavel Tchelitchews Still Life, Clown from 1930 is an oil painting that exemplifies the artists Surrealist approach to the still life genre, in which familiar objects are transformed into theatrical presences that exist on the border between the real and the imagined. The clown of the title, whether a doll, a costume, or a painted figure, introduces the themes of performance, disguise, and the uncanny that run through Tchelitchews work, in which the animate and the inanimate, the human and the object, are constantly exchanging properties in a way that destabilizes the viewers sense of reality. The still life format, with its tradition of representing the transience of material things, provides a vehicle for Tchelitchews meditation on the uncanny quality of objects that seem to possess a life of their own, and the clown, as a figure who is simultaneously human and artificial, alive and dead, becomes the perfect emblem for this meditation. The year 1930 places this painting in the period when Tchelitchew was most closely associated with the Neo-Romantic movement in Paris, producing paintings that combined the Surrealist interest in the uncanny with a figurative precision that distinguished his work from the more automatic approaches of Breton and his followers. The oil on canvas medium, applied with the meticulous finish that distinguishes Tchelitchews best work, creates a surface in which every object is rendered with hallucinatory clarity, as if the act of painting had transformed the still life into a theatrical tableau.
Cultural Impact
Tchelitchews paintings of the early 1930s are significant contributions to the Neo-Romantic and Surrealist traditions, and Still Life, Clown exemplifies his approach to the uncanny quality of objects. His work influenced the development of figurative Surrealism and the broader tradition of art that explores the border between the animate and the inanimate.
Why It Matters
A 1930 oil painting by Tchelitchew depicting a still life with a clown, transforming familiar objects into theatrical presences that explore the uncanny border between the animate and inanimate through meticulous Surrealist figurative precision.
