Bidspirit auction | Lot. Russian Avant-garde. Polina Hentova,

Lot. Russian Avant-garde. Polina Hentova, Jewish Artist, her Litho Illustr. in the book for Children of Leo Tolstoy and 7 Other Antique Illustr. Books in English - Lot. Russian Avant-garde. Polina Hentova, Jewish Artist, her Litho Illustr. in the book for Children of Leo Tolstoy and 7 Other Antique Illustr. Books in English Leo Tolstoy “The book for Children”, Berlin, 1921, 180 pp., 4 plates - Illustrated by Polina Khentova. The book includes stories for children, stories from physics, stories from zoology, stories from botany and Russian epics. Hard cover, 22.5 x 14 cm. Condition: front cover detached, rear cover started getting detached; binding started getting loose; yellow/light brown paper; sporadic foxing stains. Different condition. Total weight: 3650 gr. Polina Hentova (1896–1933) was a Russian artist, known for her paintings, sculptures and book illustrations, who spent a large part of her career in Paris and London. Polia Chentoff was born in 1896 in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire in the family of Jewish shopkeeper Abram Hentoff, and, after first moving to Moscow, studied art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.[1] She subsequently moved to Paris where she exhibited works at the Paris Salon and illustrated a number of children's books for a Berlin publisher.[2] After returning to Moscow for some years, Chentoff moved to London in the late 1920s where she continued to exhibit her paintings and sculptures.[1][2] She had solo exhibitions at several commercial galleries, including the Paul Guillaume and Brandon Davis galleries, she also showed woodcuts and engravings at the Bloomsbury Gallery during June 1930.[2] In 1932 Chentoff married the artist Edmond Xavier Kapp but died, in London, the following year from a cerebral tumour.[3] The artist El Lissitzky fell in love with Chentoff in the early 1920s, pursued her to Berlin, and apparently even tried to commit suicide in connection with the unrequited love.