Loudmouth: Picabia Championed Avant Garde Woman Artist Olga Choumansky Surrealist Gouache Painting

You know that bore with the loud opinions you meet at parties? The one who tells you about a "scoop" as if he’d heard it firsthand, while you realise he’s just repeating a push notification he has just received, or what he's just read in the Sunday papers? Meet Repetilov.

In Griboyedov’s masterpiece Woe from Wit, Repetilov is a man who treats revolution as a fashion statement. He frequents secret societies not for the policy, but for the champagne and the proximity to power. As his name implies (from the French répéter), he is the archetypal figure who adopts every fashionable radical opinion without understanding a single one of them.

This original gouache and ink work by Olga Choumansky is a significant costume study for the 1935 Prague production of the play, titled here in French "Le malheur d'avoir trop d'esprit".

The study depicts Repetilov with the flair of a cartoon villain. Choumansky utilises a bold, saturated palette, contrasting a vibrant red frock coat and deep purple cloak against stark white breeches and a ruffled jabot. His pose theatrical, self-assured, and utterly performative.

Born in Romania, Choumansky arrived in France in the late 1910s. An independent and incredibly creative force, she supported herself as a set and costume designer for opera, theatre, and film.

She exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris from 1928 and in 1929 exhibited at the legendary Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, the epicenter of the avant-garde that represented giants such as Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Amedeo Modigliani.

One of Olga's greatest champions was Francis Picabia, the Dadaist pioneer. In a manifesto, Picabia wrote of her:

“I have looked at this woman, her drawings, her paintings, for a long time. She loves life which, however, has often proven to be bad for her. I have before me an artist.”

Measuring 43 x 30.5 cm, the overall framed size is 56.5 x 43 cm.

Nous parlons français, und wir sprechen auch Deutsch! Paintings may be viewed in Norwich and in Paris, as well as in London and Cambridge by appointment. Please contact us if you would like further details and images of an artwork.