Tête d'un Pierrot

Tchelitchew was a Russian-born Surrealist painter and set designer. He studied in Kiev and lived in Berlin, Paris, New York, and finally Rome. He painted this portrait of a pierrot—French for mime—while living in Paris. In this period, he was part of Gertrude Stein’s milieu of artists and writers and designed costumes and sets for the ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev.

Although the cross-hatching and ungroundedness of the figures gives the impression of a preparatory study, much of Tchelitchew’s work dispenses with concrete references to time and place, so he may have considered this a completed work. It is likely a portrait of the pianist Allen Tanner, Tchelitchew’s lover from 1922 to 1933.