Stories & Legends

Liubov Popova also participated with a great number of works at the “0,10, Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings” including her painting titled Travelling Woman, the most “expensive” painting in this exhibition, according to the sale prices written by hand on a copy of the catalogue by Ivan Puni. Researchers studying Popova’s work are familiar with the confusion surrounding the identity of her work titled Travelling Woman, which was artwork no. 92 in the “0,10” exhibition catalogue and was later also presented in Moscow at the Store exhibition (1916) and at the 5th State Exhibition (1918-19). The Costakis collection at MOMus-Museum of Modern Art in Thessaloniki includes the well-known large painting (oil on canvas, 158.5 Χ 123 cm) under the above title, which is also the title of the painting in the Norton Simon Museum’s collection in Los Angeles (known as Traveller and also deriving from the Costakis collection).

The distinguished scholar of the Russian avant-garde Anatoli Strigalev claimed that the work that was presented at the 0,10 exhibition under the title Travelling Woman was the painting in the Norton Simon Museum’s collection, since it depicts – with greater clarity – a female figure sitting in a train compartment holding an umbrella. Anatoli Strigalev had proposed a new title for the artwork in the Costakis collection in Thessaloniki, namely Travelling Man, because there are elements in the painting pointing to a male and not female figure (e.g. tail coat, hat). However, there are elements of a female figure in this painting as well, such as the asymmetric oval contour that is repeated horizontally as a white volume in the left central section of the painting. On the back of the canvas it is written in marker, which means that it could not be written before 1950, the Russian title 'Puteshesvennitsa' (Travelling Woman).

All assumptions aside, there is an interesting element that provides a final solution to the issue of the two Travelling Women. In the catalogue of Popova’s posthumous exhibition, which was held in Moscow in 1924, the painting is presented under the title “Travelling Woman (version 2)”. In the original photographs of that exhibition saved by Costakis, one clearly sees the artwork that is today part of the Norton Simon collection hanging on the wall. Therefore we can assume that the painting in the Norton Simon collection is ‘version Νο 2’ of the Travelling Woman, while the painting of the same name at MOMus is version No.1