David Burliuk, Portrait of His Wife Maria Yelenevskaya, January 26, 1929

Signed and dated in Latin letters at lower right

Pencil and crayon on paper

13 3/16 x 8 1/2 in. (33.5 x 21.5 cm) (visible)

Inv. no. ab_10542

David Burliuk (1882-1967) is best known as a key figure of Russian Futurism. Together with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Benedict Livshits, he formed the avant-garde group Gileia (Hylaea) and was a co-author of the essential Futurist manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.”

Burliuk left Russia in 1920, traveling through Japan before settling in the United States in 1922. Once there, his wife Maria Nikiforovna Yelenevskaya (1891-1967), or Maroussia as she was known in the family, became an editor and publisher, releasing books on Russian-language poetry and art through her eponymous imprint. Throughout their early American period, she was among Burliuk’s favorite models, and he produced dozens of studies of her face in pencil, crayon, and watercolor.