With bears in Siberia

Painted in 1921, 'With Bears in Siberia' dates from the first years of Korovin's post-revolutionary period, before his emigration to Paris in 1922. The aftermath of the 1917 Revolution brought enormous disruption to Russian artistic life, and artists of Korovin's generation who had built careers in the pre-revolutionary patronage system faced uncertain futures. The Siberian bear-hunting subject draws on the tradition of Russian wildlife and landscape painting, connecting with subject matter that had particular resonances in a period of violent social transformation when images of the Russian land and its wildlife carried a heightened patriotic and nostalgic charge. The National Museum in Warsaw acquired this work through the complex channels by which European collections received Russian art in the early twentieth century.

Korovin's mature Impressionist technique is applied here to a wildlife subject quite different from his usual Mediterranean-influenced work. The contrast between the dark bears and white snow creates strong tonal anchors for the otherwise atmospheric brushwork.