Altmann studied in Odessa and Vienna before eventually moving to Paris in 1909. He was accepted into the Académie Julian, the progressive alternative to the traditionally conservative Écôle des Beaux-Arts. While in Paris, he was friends with several artists of the Fauvist and Cubist schools - stylistic influences that would become evident in his later work. During these early years in Paris, Altmann exhibited with the Salons des Indépendants and the Salon des Tuilleries. With the outbreak of the Great War, he returned to Moscow and formed an acquaintance with the famous Russian symbolist Marc Chagall. Altmann returned to Paris after the war, where he produced landscapes of the French countryside, exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne in 1922.
Altmann's palette in this untitled landscape reveals his familiarity with the color theories of Fauvism. A glimpse of red and green waterfront cottages is visible through the yellowed trees in the foreground. The canvas is dominated by the mottled indigo blues of the sea, whipped into whitecaps here and there by an unseen wind. Terracotta pink mountains rise out of the sea and seem to float overhead in the distance, an homage to the early Cubists' deconstructions of form. Although referencing his French training, Altmann creates a painting that is uniquely Russian.
Condition Report*: Re-lined canvas, previously cleaned and re-varnished, scattered strengthening throughout particularly in the upper regions.