CHEHOVSKI, ALICE (1921-2015)

"Still Life" (c.1982)
mixed media
34 x 33.5cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Alice Blanch Chehovski is a forgotten Russian-Australian Expressionist. She was born in Queensland to a Russian mother & Polish father. When her father died in Brisbane from a sudden heart attack, he left a widow and three small children. In 1923 Alice’s mother took them all back to Russia to visit her own parents in Vladivostok, with the intention to return to Australia afterwards. The following fateful year, Stalin came into power and Alice’s family was trapped when Russia closed its borders. Her brother Edward was killed in the regime. In 1944, at the age of twenty three, Alice entered Moscow’s Institute of Decorative Arts and Applied Arts to study ceramics. She began painting pictures which did not conform to the nationalistic social-realist style. This restricted her painting and drawing practice & limited her access to materials. Art books were unavailable and she painted without seeing illustrations of post-war American, British or European painting – or many avant-garde Russian painters. Her works are also intriguing from this point of view. In 1959, she settled in Vilnius Lithuania where she held her first two solo exhibitions. After much struggle, she managed to emigrate to Australia in 1981 with 113 paintings in a suitcase & $105 to her name. She settled in Melbourne at Clifton Pugh's Dunmoochin studio, which supported promising artists. She held her first Australian exhibition in 1985 through Judith Pugh's Melbourne Gallery. It was a sell-out show with many works going to major collections including the National Gallery of Australia (7 works), the Queensland Art Gallery, & the State Library of Victoria.