Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are offering for sale this impressionist Oil on Canvas by the Russian artist Lev Klin, who has signed the painting Klin in the lower left hand corner. The painting depicts an arrangement of objects on a white cloth, comprising a Chianti bottle, a brass kettle, a wine glass, half a lemon, two apples, an orange and some purple grapes.

Lev Mikhailovich Klin was born in 1887 in the Grodno province of Russia and studied at the Imperial Art Academy in St. Petersburg. We have been unable to discover in what year he arrived in England, but he was documented as being in London in 1921, where he has anglicised his name into Leo, which he is often known by today. He was reported in The Sketch as doing chalk drawing of many aristocratic ladies and their children.

In 1934, he married the lingerie designer Rosamund Lilian Kennedy in Kensington. Rosamund founded the lingerie company Kestos and was responsible for the well known bras of this period, who were exported to the US, Canada and Europe, as well as being sold in the UK. They lived at 66 Hamilton Terrace, St. Johns Wood in London and were listed in the 1939 register at this address, with a cook and two maids. Sadly, Rosamund died on 26th June, 1949, leaving a fortune for those days of £96,000 +. They also had a home in Banbury, Oxfordshire at 6, Calthorpe Road..

Lev/Leo remarried in 1952, a lady called Frances L. B. H. James (born 1904) in Marylebone. They lived at 22 Bolton Gardens, Kensington, where Leo died on 8th November, 1967 leaving an estate of £13,556.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1944/45 and 1947, from newspaper cuttings, but may have exhibited there on other years. He also showed work at the Royal Institute of Portrait Painters, United Society of Artists and the New English Art Club, as well as in the provincial exhibitions.

There are two of his still life paintings in the National Collection, at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery in Bournemouth and Sunderland Museum, both of which can be viewed at ArtUK.org. The last still life of his to come to market achieved £800 in Cambridge in 2021.

The painting has been newly framed in a 2 3/4 inch gilt frame. It will be supplied with new brass hangers, new brass picture wire and will be ready to hang.

Image size: 15 1/4 x 11 3/8 inches - 38.75cm x 28.95cm

Frame size: 20 7/8 x 17 inches - 53cm x 43.15cn

Medium: Oils on relined canvas

Condition: Very good. The canvas, which has been relined relatively recently, is clean and taut and there are no losses or craquelure. The frame is new.