Bidspirit auction | [Important Russian Art.] Sergei Mikhailovich

[Important Russian Art.] Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein. Man with a Cigarette. USSR, 1944. Tinted pink paper, black pencil, red pencil. Artist’s monogram and date in the lower right corner. Expert examination: “The work has antique and collectors’ value and may represent the artist’s oeuvre in a museum collection.” Grabar All‑Russian Art Research and Restoration Centre, Expert Report No. 193 EK‑166‑25 dated 11 July 2025, Expert Council minutes No. 23 dated 10 July 2025. The drawing belongs to the late period of Eisenstein’s work, contemporaneous with the production of the film Ivan the Terrible. It is executed in his signature manner of “automatic writing”: a broken, incisive line and deliberately grotesque proportions emphasise the nervous outline of the figure and the character’s inner tension. The contrast of the black contour and red accents against the pink tinted paper creates a sharp, almost poster‑like effect typical of the artist’s graphic works of the 1940s. The image of the smoking man is treated not as a genre sketch but as a psychological portrait: the exaggerated pose and deliberately rigid modelling give the sheet a sense of compressed energy and latent drama. Size: 20.2 × 14.3 cm. Condition: good; minor deformation of the support and small traces of handling along the edges; the drawing is mounted on an album sheet. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898–1948) was one of the leading film directors and theorists of world cinema, the founder of the montage school whose films Battleship Potemkin, Strike, October, Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible became milestones in film history. His graphic work is regarded as an independent and unique part of his legacy: scholars note that he produced several thousand drawings, many of which are held in the State Central Museum of Cinema, the Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the State Hermitage Museum and other institutions. Original sheets by Eisenstein remain an exceptionally rare occurrence on the market: the bulk of his graphic oeuvre is preserved in museum and archival collections, while the occasional appearance of his drawings at auction is episodic and perceived as an event, which lends this work particular rarity and artistic allure.