Gregory Sciltian - The Veiled Woman

He was born in the Armenian settlement of Nakhichevan-na-Donu, which later merged with the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, in 1900 to a lawyer and a descendant of a wealthy Armenian industrial family. He trained at the St. Petersburg Academy and was influenced by Beardsley, debuting in Rostov at just fifteen with works attentive to the innovations of the Cubo-Futurist avant-garde.

In 1919, following the October Revolution, he left Russia and settled in Constantinople. But in the 1920s, he returned to classical figuration, studying the works of the Italian Renaissance at the Academy and in the museums of Vienna.

He was in Berlin in 1922; in 1923 he married Elena Boberman and moved to Italy; he opened a studio in Rome and participated in the Second Rome Biennale in 1925. Roberto Longhi presented his solo exhibition at the Bragaglia art house. The critic emphasized the distinctiveness of a painting style that revisited the Caravaggesque and Flemish traditions with a realism of impressive photographic fidelity: a lenticular perfection achieved with a compact palette and a technique borrowed from ancient painting.

After participating in the 1926 Venice Biennale, Sciltian settled in Paris, where he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. In a solo exhibition at the Galérie de la Renaissance, one of his works was acquired by the Luxembourg Museum. In 1928, he participated in the Exposition de l'Art Russe at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. One of his works entered the Royal Museums of Belgium. A constant theme in his paintings was the still life treated with trompe-l'oeil.

He returned to Italy in 1934, settling in Milan until 1941, also working as a portraitist. He sent his works to exhibitions abroad (Liège, Berlin, London). He held a solo exhibition in Milan at the Galleria Scopinich, reviewed by Carlo Carrà in 'L'Ambrosiano', and one at Van Leer in Paris in 1933, at the Circolo della Stampa in Bologna in 1937, and again in Milan at Gianferrari in 1938. He exhibited the painting 'Bacco all'osteria' in the British Pavilion at the 1936 Venice Biennale, which was purchased by the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. In 1940, with Fabrizio Clerici, he created a trompe l'oeil for the 7th Milan Triennale. In 1942, he had a solo exhibition in Milan at the Galleria del Milione and a room at the Venice Biennale. After the war, he set up a studio in Milan in Palazzo Trivulzio. In 1947, he exhibited at the Galleria dell'Illustrazione in Milan in the exhibition "Painting by the Group of Modern Painters of Reality" with the Bueno brothers, Acci, Carlo Guarienti, Serri, and Pietro Annigoni. With the same group, he exhibited in 1948 at the Galleria La Margherita. He deepened his study of Mannerism while working in summers in Gardone Riviera on Lake Garda, where he owned a home (in 1988, his widow donated 16 canvases and other paintings from her private collection to the Vittoriale degli Italiani, where they are still on display at Villa Mirabella). He exhibited at the Portrait exhibition at the Galleria Cherubini in Florence in 1949.

In 1950, he exhibited a group of works at the 25th Venice Biennale and at the Parisian exhibition "Exposition Internationale des Peintres de la Réalité" at the Galérie Martoren. Waldemar George's book "Sciltian: The Magic of Reality" was published in Milan.

In 1953 he exhibited in Milan in a fashionable venue on Via Montenapoleone.

Further appearances in Paris at Drouet in 1958 and at Bernheim Jeune in 1974. Roman anthology at Palazzo Venezia in 1970.

Since the 1950s, he has been designing costumes for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Teatro alla Scala; since the 1960s, he has worked on religious subjects; he has illustrated works for publishers. He has published the autobiographical books 'Mia avventura' and 'La realtà di Sciltian. Trattato sulla pittura'. Anthologies in Milan in 1980 (the catalogue includes writings by I. Faldi, M. Fagiolo dell'Arco, and F. Miele) and in Moscow in 1983. Bibliography: R. Civello, Sciltian, opera omnia, Milan 1986.

He died in Rome on April 1, 1985, and is buried in the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome. His gravestone bears his aphorism: "The only true and supreme purpose of the art of painting has been and always will be to achieve the illusion of reality."

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