Portrait of Naomi Harris Saffer 1957

David Burliuk painted this portrait of Naomi Harris Saffer in 1957, and it's oil on canvas. Burliuk was a key figure in the Russian avant-garde, known for his involvement in futurist movements and his desire to break from traditional artistic conventions. After immigrating to the United States in the 1920s, Burliuk shifted towards a more accessible style, as we can see in this portrait. The setting and clothing are suggestive of middle-class respectability in the post-war period. But Burliuk still maintains some of his earlier avant-garde preferences in the bold colors and brushstrokes. By this time, the center of the art world had moved from Europe to the United States. It's interesting to see Burliuk’s negotiation of that institutional shift in his painting. Understanding artworks like this requires considering not just the artist's intentions, but also the broader social, cultural, and institutional contexts in which they were created and viewed. We can explore this further by looking at the archives of galleries and museums from the time that might have exhibited Burliuk’s work.