Bidspirit auction | [Important Russian Art.] Sergei Mikhailovich

[Important Russian Art.] Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein. Head of a Man. USSR, 1944. Pink paper, coloured pencils. Drawing from an album of drawings by the director Sergei Eisenstein; several sheets in the album bear the author’s dates of 1944. 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. 195 EK‑168‑25 dated 11 July 2025, Expert Council minutes No. 23 dated 10 July 2025. The drawing is a vivid example of Eisenstein’s “automatic” drawing, in which the line acquires an almost musical rhythm. It shows the expressive manner characteristic of the 1940s: the sharp profile, defined with a confident dark line, combined with whirling strokes of coloured pencils, creates an effect of psychological depth and inner tension. In the expressiveness of its line and the heightened plasticity of the head, the sheet can be compared with the circle of European Expressionist graphics of the first half of the 20th century, yet it retains Eisenstein’s unmistakable personal style. Size: 19.9 × 14.3 cm. Condition: good; minor deformation of the support, a light “sun‑shadow” along the perimeter, slight abrasions. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898–1948) was a Soviet film director, film theorist and artist, one of the founders of world montage cinema; his films Battleship Potemkin, Strike, October, Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible became milestones in film history. Eisenstein’s drawings form an independent part of his oeuvre, clearly revealing the director’s temperament and his inclination toward visual experiment: they are executed in a free, improvisational manner, with rapid lines, exaggerated figures and emotions deliberately pushed to the point of grotesque. Already during his lifetime his graphic work was exhibited abroad, including in the USA, where one exhibition was accompanied by an enthusiastic review in The New York Times; an important stage in the posthumous recognition of his drawings was a major solo exhibition in Moscow in 1959 and the publication in 1961 of the first album of his works. The artist’s drawings are held in the collections of: The State Central Museum of Cinema; The Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum; The Russian State Archive of Literature and Art; as well as other museum and private collections. Original sheets by Eisenstein remain an exceptionally rare phenomenon on the art market: the greater part of his graphic oeuvre is held in institutional collections, and the occasional appearance of his works at auction is episodic and perceived as an event, which lends this sheet particular rarity and artistic allure.