Composition with Cat and Multiple Heads
Pavel Tchelitchew American, born Russia
Not on view
This drawing reflects Tchelitchew’s engagement with Surrealist and Neo-Romantic ideas, combining an intricate composition with dreamlike imagery. Known for his depictions of heads—often singular, bust-like forms—he expands this theme here through layered figures that metamorphize into one another. This practice of combining, overlapping, and otherwise contouring the figures in his compositions first appeared in Tchelitchew’s work of the 1920s, though the artist’s interest in this technique likely stemmed from a childhood fascination with double image postcards, as curator James Thrall Soby noted.[1]
[1] James Thrall Soby, Tchelitchew: Paintings and Drawings. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, p. 18.
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