In the early 20th century, Vera Rockline was a renowned and well-respected household name in émigré avant-garde circles and the artistic society of Paris. Tragically, following her death at 37 years old, she was forgotten by art historians and aficionados until an exhibition in 2002 at the Musée de Montparnasse attracted newfound attention to her diverse and lyrical body of work. Recent re-examination and discovery of Rockline's oeuvre uncover an incomparable, dual talent intent on finesse and the tender evocation of mood in her nudes and abstract innovation in her Cubist work, such is visible in Vue de Tiflis.
Vera Rockline was born and grew up in Moscow, and as a young art student her precocious virtuosity landed her a spot in Ilya Mashkov's (1881-1944) studio, where she became his most talented pupil, as testified by the artist's widow. In 1918, she moved to Kiev to become an apprentice for Aleksandra Exter (1882-1949), who was known for her experimental Constructivist set and costume designs for the Kamerny Theatre in Moscow. During her time in Kiev, Rockline was influenced by Exter's Cubo-Futurist principles, though her palette was deemed more Cézannesque, employing darker, bluer tones. Around 1918, Rockline married Sergei Rockline (1893-1975), who later founded the philatelic emporium, Maison Romeko, in Paris. Civil war, famine and unrest engulfed the Russian Empire and Rockline were compelled to flee to Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi), where she expanded her Cubo-Futurist leanings and further developed her abstract style. Under her maiden name Shlezinger, she participated in exhibitions in Tiflis and established herself among the Georgian artistic elite. In 1919-20 she participated in the exhibitions of the Society of Georgian Artists', and in 1920 contributed to the 'Small Circle' shows, alongside the great Georgian masters Niko Pirosmani (1862-1918) and Kirill Zdanevich (1892-1969), among others. It is highly probable that Vue de Tiflis was shown at the Society of Georgian Artists' Second autumn exhibition of paintings in 1919, under the title Peisazh №2, corresponding to the inscription '№2./Tiflis' on the reverse. However, in 1921 Rockline left for Paris to join her grandmother and from then on she predominantly painted Impressionistic nudes of women which were compared by her peers to the likes of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) and Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). She exhibited extensively at the Salon D'Automne and the Salon des Tuileries until her demise. Rockline's premature death was noted as 'one of the most painful losses' of the Paris art world of her generation by the art critic Marius-Ary Leblond in the preface of the 1934 Salon d'Automne catalogue.
Vue de Tiflis is an exceptional canvas from Rockline's highly coveted Cubist period. Another example, The Card Players, painted in 1919, was auctioned by Christie's on 24 June 2008 and smashed the artist's world auction record, selling for an impressive £2,057,250. In Vue de Tiflis the buildings and architecture of Tiflis are warped and abstracted, displaying the fragmentation of form characteristic of Cubism, with flat intersecting and overlapping planes, all of which suggest the energetic zeal and restlessness of the capital. The palette is earthy and warm, reminiscent of the subtropical climate of the Caucasus. While many Cubo-Futurist subjects consist of factories and other wonders of industrial revolution, Rockline chooses a distinct setting, untouched by her fellow Western peers: a city in the Caucasus which displays a different type of urbanity, with the abstraction of a mosque in the background, and embellished with a soaring white minaret. Her choice of subject is significant: it is likely that she chose to depict the Jumah mosque, which remains the only surviving mosque in Tbilisi to this day, having been destroyed by the Persians in the 1740s and rebuilt in 1846-1851 by the Italian architect Giovanni Scudieri, the chief architect of Tbilisi at the time.