Yolanda Lacca

Yolanda Lacca, painted in 1935, was executed during Korovin's Paris exile years following the Russian Revolution. After the Bolshevik takeover of 1917, Korovin initially remained in Russia but eventually emigrated to Paris in 1922, where he spent the last seventeen years of his life. His Paris years were financially difficult — he depended on commissions, sold paintings to Russian émigré collectors, and continued to paint with the same colorist energy of his earlier work. The figure of Yolanda Lacca — likely a model or acquaintance from his Paris social circle rather than a commissioned portrait — represents his continued engagement with the female figure in the Impressionist genre tradition. Paris in 1935 was still a vibrant center of modern art, though Korovin's style by this point was seen as belonging to the Impressionist past rather than the avant-garde present. The current location is not definitively recorded, suggesting private ownership.

The late Paris-period works show Korovin's technique fully mature and somewhat looser than his pre-revolutionary canvases. The characteristic broken Impressionist brushwork remains, applied now with the freedom of an artist who no longer needs to demonstrate anything. The color is warm and confident — the palette of a painter whose southern light instincts never left him despite decades in northern Paris.