330 LEON GASPARD (1882-1964) Russian Peasants, Mountains and Snow, 1935-45 oil on canvas 54 x 42 inches signed lower left: Leon Gaspard In Vitebsk, Russia, Leon Gaspard was a student of Julius Penn and Marc Chagall. He studied in Odessa and Moscow then, at age seventeen, traveled to Paris to study under Édouard Toudouze and William-Adolphe Bouguereau at the Académie Julian. His first one-person show in Paris sold out. In 1908, he married an American and took a two-year honeymoon in Siberia. The paintings from that trip were also well received in Paris. An aviator for France in World War I, Gaspard was shot down and went to New York to recover from his injuries. Urged to seek out a drier climate, Gaspard and his wife, Evelyn, first visited Taos in 1916, and settled permanently there in 1918. Gaspard’s circle of friends in Taos included notables such as Mabel Dodge Luhan, D.H. Lawrence, John Marin, Buck Dunton, and Gaspard’s countryman, Nicolai Fechin. An inveterate traveler, Gaspard left Taos regularly to undertake extensive sojourns in China, Mongolia, Tibet, North Africa, and Russia. His travels are reflected in his oeuvre—as evidenced by Russian Peasants, Mountains and Snow and In Cairo—along with vibrant New Mexico landscapes and portraits of the people of Taos Pueblo. Provenance: Private Collection, Los Angeles, California Private Collection, Minneapolis, Minnesota Private Collection, Santa Fe, New Mexico $400,000 - $600,000
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