Bidspirit auction | Pyles Isaac (1895 - 1978)

Pyles Isaac (1895 - 1978) ”Landscape of a French city”, the second quarter of the twentieth century. Canvas, oil. 72.5 x 91 cm. In the lower right corner is the author's signature: ”I.Pails”. Expert opinion of Silaev V.S. - ”Landscape of a French City” is a work characteristic of Isaac Pyles, in which the urban motif turns into a picturesque atmosphere. The artist builds the composition as a calm panorama with a clear architectural “grid”: facades, streets and perspective plans are assembled into a single rhythm, so that the image is perceived as a whole and musically — as a harmony of proportions, light and air. Pyles' painting is distinguished by a subtle sense of tonal relationships and a soft, “breathing” light environment. Oil painting creates shimmers of semitones and a slight vibration of the surface; colors work not descriptively, but emotionally, conveying the state of a southern or temperate French day — with its transparency and warm silence. In such landscapes, it is not the specific topography that is more important, but the feeling of a place: the measured flow of life, the plasticity of stone and the feeling of a space filled with light. The signature ”I. Pails” captures the author's character of the work, and the presence of an expert opinion confirms the attribution and enhances the collector's significance of the work. Payles Isaac December 13, 1895 (Kiev) 1978 (Paris). Painter, graphic artist. Biographical information about the artist is scarce. He graduated from the Kiev Art School. Around 1913 he went to France, studied sculpture in private workshops in Paris. Around 1915 he returned to Russia and took up painting. In February 1920, he exhibited his work at the First Jewish Art Exhibition in the Hall of the Cultural League in Kiev. In the same year, he emigrated to France and became a French citizen. He was friends with M. Kikoin, P. Kremen, O. Zadkin and other artists of Montparnasse who came from Russia. In 1923, he participated in the Udar group exhibition, and exhibited his works in Parisian salons. After the Second World War, he achieved recognition and commercial success. He held a number of solo exhibitions at the Carstairs Galleries in New York (1950) and Mason Francaise (1963), and the Kaganovich Gallery in Paris (1958). He painted mainly landscapes of Paris, the south of France, Corsica in a manner reminiscent of M. Utrillo, as well as abstract compositions with a barely noticeable landscape beginning.