1905
See also : Painting Art on paper Children Nude Flowers Music and dance Self portrait Self portrait II Picasso Picasso < 1907 Monet Pond by Monet Alps US painting < 1940
natural wonder
1905 the Cullinan
British Royal collection
The Cullinan mine was discovered in 1902. In 1905 a miner unearthed a type IIa historic gem weighing 3,106 carats that remains unique by its weight and quality.
Two famous white diamonds belonging to the British Royal Collection were extracted from the "Cullinan": the Great Star of Africa mounted on the scepter and the Second Star of Africa mounted on the crown. The 530-carat Great Star of Africa is the largest faceted colorless diamond in the world.
An image of the rough Cullinan diamond is shared by Wikimedia.
Two famous white diamonds belonging to the British Royal Collection were extracted from the "Cullinan": the Great Star of Africa mounted on the scepter and the Second Star of Africa mounted on the crown. The 530-carat Great Star of Africa is the largest faceted colorless diamond in the world.
An image of the rough Cullinan diamond is shared by Wikimedia.
masterpiece
1905 Le Lion ayant Faim by Rousseau
Fondation Beyeler
Exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1905 beside avant-garde paintings by Matisse and Derain. Commented as follows by Rousseau for the exhibition :
"Le lion, ayant faim, se jette sur l'antilope, la dévore. La panthère attend avec anxiété le moment où, elle aussi, pourra en avoir sa part. Des oiseaux carnivores ont déchiqueté chacun un morceau de chair de dessus le pauvre animal versant un pleur! Soleil couchant."
A Renaissance style sculpture was also exhibited in the same room. Vauxcelles commented : "Donatello chez les Fauves". So was coined the term Fauvisme for the new style of Matisse and Derain.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
"Le lion, ayant faim, se jette sur l'antilope, la dévore. La panthère attend avec anxiété le moment où, elle aussi, pourra en avoir sa part. Des oiseaux carnivores ont déchiqueté chacun un morceau de chair de dessus le pauvre animal versant un pleur! Soleil couchant."
A Renaissance style sculpture was also exhibited in the same room. Vauxcelles commented : "Donatello chez les Fauves". So was coined the term Fauvisme for the new style of Matisse and Derain.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1905 Innocent Children of the Période Rose
2018 SOLD for $ 115M including premium
Pablo Picasso is back in Paris in April 1904. Barcelona had not dissipated his morbid obsessions and he needs a restart. He installs his workshop at the Bateau-Lavoir and finally manages to create a couple, with Fernande. Gradually his painting loses its blue predominant to include warm colors like pink or orange. It is his Période Rose.
Poverty had dominated his Période Bleue. It is now replaced by the optimistic and promising theme of children ready to enter adulthood. The Garçon à la pipe, oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm painted in 1905, was sold for $ 104M including premium by Sotheby's on May 5, 2004.
Pablo mixes the innocence of the nude with the acquisition of a first job. Although the formats are very different, the Fillette à la corbeille fleurie, 155 x 66 cm painted in 1905, and the Garçon menant un cheval, 220 x 131 cm finished in 1906, appear as pendants.
The girl is standing in profile. The body is healthy, straight. The expression is rebellious without any excuse for immodesty, in a striking psychological effect : this young person has obviously been disturbed in her occupation.
During the very short Période Rose the line is delimited and effective. The figurative realism of this Fillette makes forget that nudity may not have been necessary. This artwork successively delighted Gertrude Stein and David Rockefeller. It will be sold on May 8 by Christie's in New York, lot 15.
Poverty had dominated his Période Bleue. It is now replaced by the optimistic and promising theme of children ready to enter adulthood. The Garçon à la pipe, oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm painted in 1905, was sold for $ 104M including premium by Sotheby's on May 5, 2004.
Pablo mixes the innocence of the nude with the acquisition of a first job. Although the formats are very different, the Fillette à la corbeille fleurie, 155 x 66 cm painted in 1905, and the Garçon menant un cheval, 220 x 131 cm finished in 1906, appear as pendants.
The girl is standing in profile. The body is healthy, straight. The expression is rebellious without any excuse for immodesty, in a striking psychological effect : this young person has obviously been disturbed in her occupation.
During the very short Période Rose the line is delimited and effective. The figurative realism of this Fillette makes forget that nudity may not have been necessary. This artwork successively delighted Gertrude Stein and David Rockefeller. It will be sold on May 8 by Christie's in New York, lot 15.
1905 Garçon à la Pipe by Picasso
2004 SOLD for $ 104M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
The miserability of the Période Bleue of Picasso, based on the difficult life of circus acrobats, was socially a dead end. In 1905 he reacts with new themes where the characters imagine their future without losing a stuck or surly attitude. These works include the Femme à l'éventail and two children, the Fillette à la corbeille de fleurs and the Garçon à la pipe.
La Fillette, oil on canvas 155 x 66 cm, was sold for $ 115M including premium by Christie's on May 8, 2018. Le Garçon, oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm, was sold for $ 104M including premium by Sotheby's on May 5, 2004, lot 7.
The Garçon à la Pipe is a subtle blend of realism and dreamlike and, as such, will remain the archetype of the Période Rose. Dressed in blue overalls, the gloomy teenager is drawn in a fine line. The pipe marks his expectation of maturity. Picasso did not reveal his identity, because it is an allegory. He is however P'tit Louis, a boy from Montmartre who spent long hours watching the artists working at the Bateau-Lavoir.
The inspiration suddenly came to Picasso after a month of interruption of the work. In the blur of a dream, the character is positioned in front of a wallpaper with patterns of roses and wears a garland of flowers in his hair. A simultaneous use of a sharp image in a floral blur had also been attempted by Odilon Redon.
The little worker thus becomes a supernatural being. A relevant comparison was made with Verlaine's poem titled Crimen Amoris. In the dream of a delicious Orient where the seven sins supersede the five senses amidst the roses, the most handsome of the evil angels, indifferent to temptations and caresses, is a boy of sixteen who wears a crown of flowers. His ambition, annihilated at the end of the poem, was to be "the one who will create God".
La Fillette, oil on canvas 155 x 66 cm, was sold for $ 115M including premium by Christie's on May 8, 2018. Le Garçon, oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm, was sold for $ 104M including premium by Sotheby's on May 5, 2004, lot 7.
The Garçon à la Pipe is a subtle blend of realism and dreamlike and, as such, will remain the archetype of the Période Rose. Dressed in blue overalls, the gloomy teenager is drawn in a fine line. The pipe marks his expectation of maturity. Picasso did not reveal his identity, because it is an allegory. He is however P'tit Louis, a boy from Montmartre who spent long hours watching the artists working at the Bateau-Lavoir.
The inspiration suddenly came to Picasso after a month of interruption of the work. In the blur of a dream, the character is positioned in front of a wallpaper with patterns of roses and wears a garland of flowers in his hair. A simultaneous use of a sharp image in a floral blur had also been attempted by Odilon Redon.
The little worker thus becomes a supernatural being. A relevant comparison was made with Verlaine's poem titled Crimen Amoris. In the dream of a delicious Orient where the seven sins supersede the five senses amidst the roses, the most handsome of the evil angels, indifferent to temptations and caresses, is a boy of sixteen who wears a crown of flowers. His ambition, annihilated at the end of the poem, was to be "the one who will create God".
1905 Water Landscapes
2015 SOLD for $ 54M including premium
In 1904 Claude Monet is seduced by his own work, not as an artist but as a gardener. Water lilies are now invading his pond at Giverny. Their floating leaves constitute a perfectly flat surface which is unique as an artistic theme and the exquisite colors of the flowers meet the Art Nouveau sensitivity of the time.
The artist begins a synthesis of this new theme with his concern from the previous twenty years for the changing colors and reflections under various time and weather. He had the good fortune to catch in his own garden the most subtle theme of modern painting.
The paintings of the first year of the Nymphéas series are very rare on the art market. One of them, 81 x 100 cm, was sold for £ 18.5 million including premium by Sotheby's on 19 June 2007. In this close-up view, the edge of the pond is already off the field, also providing an impression of infinity that anticipates Mondrian.
In 1905, the water lilies are more sparse to offer a better role to reflections that became recognizable although the trees are still out of field. The plants form a floating cohort simulating a nice horizontal movement.
A view in clear weather under a gentle sun, oil on canvas 90 x 100 cm, was sold for $ 44M including premium by Christie's on November 7, 2012.
On May 5 in New York, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas 81 x 100 cm, lot 30 estimated $ 30M. Also dated 1905, it shows the blocks at the water surface in an atmosphere of early or late hour providing a superb harmony of deep blues and greens.
The artist begins a synthesis of this new theme with his concern from the previous twenty years for the changing colors and reflections under various time and weather. He had the good fortune to catch in his own garden the most subtle theme of modern painting.
The paintings of the first year of the Nymphéas series are very rare on the art market. One of them, 81 x 100 cm, was sold for £ 18.5 million including premium by Sotheby's on 19 June 2007. In this close-up view, the edge of the pond is already off the field, also providing an impression of infinity that anticipates Mondrian.
In 1905, the water lilies are more sparse to offer a better role to reflections that became recognizable although the trees are still out of field. The plants form a floating cohort simulating a nice horizontal movement.
A view in clear weather under a gentle sun, oil on canvas 90 x 100 cm, was sold for $ 44M including premium by Christie's on November 7, 2012.
On May 5 in New York, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas 81 x 100 cm, lot 30 estimated $ 30M. Also dated 1905, it shows the blocks at the water surface in an atmosphere of early or late hour providing a superb harmony of deep blues and greens.
AuctionUpdate: Sotheby's Chairmen George Wachter and Patti Wong battle for Monet’s ‘Nymphéas,' selling for $54m pic.twitter.com/4mlTAOvKY9
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) May 6, 2015
1905 Les Noces de Pierrette by Picasso
1989 SOLD for FF 315M including premium by Binoche et Godeau
narrated in 2020
The Période Bleue begins in 1901 with the suicide of Casagemas. Picasso remains melancholic. His main theme is poverty, painted with cool colors. The associated theme is the contradictory life of circus acrobats, who must amuse the public while their real life is miserable.
Les Noces de Pierrette, oil on canvas 115 x 195 cm, appears at first glance as a work of the blue period. It was however painted in 1905, a year rather characterized by the entry of the artist into his pink period with the return of a positive meaning of life. In this transitional artwork, Picasso criticizes the power of money.
This painting depicts six circus characters, three men and three women. During the blue period, the compositions rarely exceeded the couple, sometimes with a child or a partner.
The tension is brought by the whiteness of the faces, the sad expressions, the dark colors of the clothes and of the background. The artist is staging a drama. Pierrette marries the boss of the circus but her amorous look is for Arlequin, who sends her a kiss with one hand while furiously closing the other fist behind his back.
Les Noces de Pierrette was sold on November 30, 1989 by Binoche et Godeau for FF 315M including premium, worth US $ 52M. The Minister of Culture had granted this work the authorization to leave France in exchange for the gift to the French State by its owner of La Célestine, another painting of the blue period considered to be more important.
Unlike La Célestine, Pierrette is not a character from literature. She would rather be a female equivalent of Pierrot, a Colombine being losing her Arlequin, imagined by Picasso.
Les Noces de Pierrette, oil on canvas 115 x 195 cm, appears at first glance as a work of the blue period. It was however painted in 1905, a year rather characterized by the entry of the artist into his pink period with the return of a positive meaning of life. In this transitional artwork, Picasso criticizes the power of money.
This painting depicts six circus characters, three men and three women. During the blue period, the compositions rarely exceeded the couple, sometimes with a child or a partner.
The tension is brought by the whiteness of the faces, the sad expressions, the dark colors of the clothes and of the background. The artist is staging a drama. Pierrette marries the boss of the circus but her amorous look is for Arlequin, who sends her a kiss with one hand while furiously closing the other fist behind his back.
Les Noces de Pierrette was sold on November 30, 1989 by Binoche et Godeau for FF 315M including premium, worth US $ 52M. The Minister of Culture had granted this work the authorization to leave France in exchange for the gift to the French State by its owner of La Célestine, another painting of the blue period considered to be more important.
Unlike La Célestine, Pierrette is not a character from literature. She would rather be a female equivalent of Pierrot, a Colombine being losing her Arlequin, imagined by Picasso.
1905 Monet overwhelmed by his Nymphéas
2012 SOLD 44 M$ including premium
Continuously in search of the harmony of colors and lights, Monet could not ignore the water lilies. When he installed some of them in his pool at Giverny, it was for the pleasure of gardening. The infinite variety of shapes and reflections pushed Monet to make the Nymphéas his favorite subject.
Constable had been the painter of the wind. Monet was the artist of the water surface. After the development of Impressionism, the Nymphéas series is the second revolution brought about by Monet in art history.
In June 19, 2007, Sotheby's sold £ 18.5 million including premium an oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm. Dated 1904, it demonstrates the first systematic experiments on this subject: the horizon disappears to let the water remaining alone in space. The green reflections are almost abstract, already.
The oil on canvas, 90 x 100 cm, for sale by Christie's in New York on November 7, is dated in the following year, 1905. The water lilies have a botanical accuracy, the more readable reflections are a better tribute to the pleasure of the garden. It is estimated $ 30M, and illustrated in the release shared by Artdaily.
Durand-Ruel was the first to understand and support the transformation of the art of Monet. In 1909, he assembled in an exhibition 48 Nymphéas by Monet, including the painting now for sale at Christie's. Through this unique theme, careful observers could detect the infinite variety of the artistic creation.
POST SALE COMMENT
By its date and quality, this painting is one of the most outstanding from the Nympheas series: $ 44M including premium.
Constable had been the painter of the wind. Monet was the artist of the water surface. After the development of Impressionism, the Nymphéas series is the second revolution brought about by Monet in art history.
In June 19, 2007, Sotheby's sold £ 18.5 million including premium an oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm. Dated 1904, it demonstrates the first systematic experiments on this subject: the horizon disappears to let the water remaining alone in space. The green reflections are almost abstract, already.
The oil on canvas, 90 x 100 cm, for sale by Christie's in New York on November 7, is dated in the following year, 1905. The water lilies have a botanical accuracy, the more readable reflections are a better tribute to the pleasure of the garden. It is estimated $ 30M, and illustrated in the release shared by Artdaily.
Durand-Ruel was the first to understand and support the transformation of the art of Monet. In 1909, he assembled in an exhibition 48 Nymphéas by Monet, including the painting now for sale at Christie's. Through this unique theme, careful observers could detect the infinite variety of the artistic creation.
POST SALE COMMENT
By its date and quality, this painting is one of the most outstanding from the Nympheas series: $ 44M including premium.
1905 Au Lapin Agile by Picasso
1989 SOLD for $ 41M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
Cabarets had a preponderant place in Picasso's youth. It is indeed at the 4 Gats in Barcelona that he feels the desire to have a bohemian life in Montmartre.
Le Lapin Agile is perfectly located in the heart of Montmartre, rue des Saules. Before 1900 its reputation had been sordid. Its name is a pun on the sign created by the cartoonist André Gill showing a happy rabbit jumping out of a pan.
Picasso arrives in Paris at the time when a new steward nicknamed Frédé organizes evenings in this cabaret during which poets, comedians and artists from Montmartre play music, sing, recite poems, chat with conviviality. Frédé plays guitar and cello.
Au Lapin Agile is an oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm painted by Picasso in 1905 on a commission from Frédé. Pablo prepares it in the graphic style of Toulouse-Lautrec's posters, without any style link either with the blue period or with the pink period. It was sold for $ 41M including premium by Sotheby's on November 27, 1989.
The couple in the foreground, seated in front of glasses of wine, is made up of Picasso dressed as a Harlequin and of Germaine, the woman who had rejected Casagemas but was probably Pablo's mistress throughout the blue period. Behind them, Frédé plays the guitar.
Picasso's painting hung on the wall of the cabaret until 1912. It was therefore a silent witness of the most famous hoax in the history of art.
In 1910 on the cabaret terrace, the writer Roland Dorgelès accompanied by an accomplice attaches brushes to the tail of Lolo, Frédé's donkey. In the presence of a bailiff, they dip the brushes in pots of orange, yellow, red and blue paint and offer the animal a carrot. The frantic movement of the tail creates on a 54 x 81 cm canvas the masterpiece titled Et le Soleil s'endormit sur l'Adriatique, signed J.R. Boronali, an anagram of Buridan's famous donkey, Aliboron.
They exhibit this Sunset at the Salon des Indépendants as a manifesto of the Excessivisme. The fruitful debates that the hoax has aroused about the meaning of art are thus a direct consequence of the artists' meetings at the Lapin Agile. Picasso's painting is a rare rendering of this environment.
Le Lapin Agile is perfectly located in the heart of Montmartre, rue des Saules. Before 1900 its reputation had been sordid. Its name is a pun on the sign created by the cartoonist André Gill showing a happy rabbit jumping out of a pan.
Picasso arrives in Paris at the time when a new steward nicknamed Frédé organizes evenings in this cabaret during which poets, comedians and artists from Montmartre play music, sing, recite poems, chat with conviviality. Frédé plays guitar and cello.
Au Lapin Agile is an oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm painted by Picasso in 1905 on a commission from Frédé. Pablo prepares it in the graphic style of Toulouse-Lautrec's posters, without any style link either with the blue period or with the pink period. It was sold for $ 41M including premium by Sotheby's on November 27, 1989.
The couple in the foreground, seated in front of glasses of wine, is made up of Picasso dressed as a Harlequin and of Germaine, the woman who had rejected Casagemas but was probably Pablo's mistress throughout the blue period. Behind them, Frédé plays the guitar.
Picasso's painting hung on the wall of the cabaret until 1912. It was therefore a silent witness of the most famous hoax in the history of art.
In 1910 on the cabaret terrace, the writer Roland Dorgelès accompanied by an accomplice attaches brushes to the tail of Lolo, Frédé's donkey. In the presence of a bailiff, they dip the brushes in pots of orange, yellow, red and blue paint and offer the animal a carrot. The frantic movement of the tail creates on a 54 x 81 cm canvas the masterpiece titled Et le Soleil s'endormit sur l'Adriatique, signed J.R. Boronali, an anagram of Buridan's famous donkey, Aliboron.
They exhibit this Sunset at the Salon des Indépendants as a manifesto of the Excessivisme. The fruitful debates that the hoax has aroused about the meaning of art are thus a direct consequence of the artists' meetings at the Lapin Agile. Picasso's painting is a rare rendering of this environment.
1905 Acrobate et Jeune Arlequin by Picasso
1988 SOLD for £ 21M (worth $ 38.5M at that time) including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2021
During his blue period, Picasso hesitates between Barcelona and Paris. His fourth trip to Paris, in April 1904, is decisive.
The 1901 beginning of his Parisian glory is already far away. A friend gives him a place at the Bateau-Lavoir, a dwelling for artists on the slopes of the Butte Montmartre. There he finds emigrant artists, Italian and Spanish, who cannot escape poverty and earn a few cents by selling their works to second-hand dealers.
He has the will to get out of it. This miserable workshop becomes his pied-à-terre from where he makes new friends, including Max Jacob. He wants to have fun and goes to nightclubs and the Medrano circus. His new muse, Fernande, replaces Germaine, the femme fatale who had repelled Casagemas and whose direct influence on Pablo has not been disclosed.
Tragic art is not a lasting solution for this return of ambitions. Picasso observes that clowns, entrusted for entertaining the public, have the same hungry lives as the unknown artists. Acrobats and saltimbanques take the place of the prostitutes from the blue period in Pablo's world. By an optimism which is undoubtedly forced, he adds the children who still believe in the future pleasures of their life.
In February 1905, Picasso prepares an exhibition of several works on the theme of the circus, which followed the edition of the Repas Frugal. A watercolor features an adult acrobat and a teenage harlequin, both costumed to take the stage. They are serious and bony. The warm colors announce the entry into the pink period.
This artwork was sold by Christie's on November 28, 1988 for £ 21M, worth at the time $ 38.5M, including premium, from a lower estimate of £ 10M. It is illustrated in the post sale article by Judd Tully, the Washington Post art critic.
The 1901 beginning of his Parisian glory is already far away. A friend gives him a place at the Bateau-Lavoir, a dwelling for artists on the slopes of the Butte Montmartre. There he finds emigrant artists, Italian and Spanish, who cannot escape poverty and earn a few cents by selling their works to second-hand dealers.
He has the will to get out of it. This miserable workshop becomes his pied-à-terre from where he makes new friends, including Max Jacob. He wants to have fun and goes to nightclubs and the Medrano circus. His new muse, Fernande, replaces Germaine, the femme fatale who had repelled Casagemas and whose direct influence on Pablo has not been disclosed.
Tragic art is not a lasting solution for this return of ambitions. Picasso observes that clowns, entrusted for entertaining the public, have the same hungry lives as the unknown artists. Acrobats and saltimbanques take the place of the prostitutes from the blue period in Pablo's world. By an optimism which is undoubtedly forced, he adds the children who still believe in the future pleasures of their life.
In February 1905, Picasso prepares an exhibition of several works on the theme of the circus, which followed the edition of the Repas Frugal. A watercolor features an adult acrobat and a teenage harlequin, both costumed to take the stage. They are serious and bony. The warm colors announce the entry into the pink period.
This artwork was sold by Christie's on November 28, 1988 for £ 21M, worth at the time $ 38.5M, including premium, from a lower estimate of £ 10M. It is illustrated in the post sale article by Judd Tully, the Washington Post art critic.
1905 A Siesta by Sargent
2004 SOLD for $ 23.5M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
Influenced by impressionism, John Singer Sargent was one of the best portrait painters of his time. As he approaches fifty, he wants to live his life better. He has been traveling throughout Europe since his youth. He will now refocus his art on the landscapes of his travels and on the holiday scenes with his friends.
Group with Parasols (A Siesta) is an oil on canvas 55 x 71 cm painted in 1905. Two women and two men enjoy the farniente in a meadow on the border of a wood in the Swiss Alps.
The colors are very contrasted, in the chiaroscuro of a hot summer day. The removal of details takes some parts of the image to the borders of abstraction.
One of the men has his head resting on the belly of his mistress who is peacefully dozing under her white parasol. The painting was dedicated to this friend. This extramarital relationship, as well as the different position of each of the four sleepers, matches the artist's deep desire for a free life.
Group with Parasols was sold for $ 23.5M including premium by Sotheby's on December 1, 2004 over a lower estimate of $ 9M.
Group with Parasols (A Siesta) is an oil on canvas 55 x 71 cm painted in 1905. Two women and two men enjoy the farniente in a meadow on the border of a wood in the Swiss Alps.
The colors are very contrasted, in the chiaroscuro of a hot summer day. The removal of details takes some parts of the image to the borders of abstraction.
One of the men has his head resting on the belly of his mistress who is peacefully dozing under her white parasol. The painting was dedicated to this friend. This extramarital relationship, as well as the different position of each of the four sleepers, matches the artist's deep desire for a free life.
Group with Parasols was sold for $ 23.5M including premium by Sotheby's on December 1, 2004 over a lower estimate of $ 9M.
1905 Vlaminck inspired by Van Gogh
2011 SOLD 22.5 M$ including premium
Maurice de Vlaminck was an unusual personality. Violinist, cyclist, African tribal art collector, anarchist activist, bulky and thunderous colossus, he did not follow the predefined tracks.
He shares with Derain an artist's studio in Chatou. Success is not to go, and all experiments are possible. The visit made by the two friends to an exhibition of the works of Van Gogh excites Vlaminck, who finds his style.
The idea is powerful: only the color should dominate the painting, and it must be pure. The figure, realistic among Impressionists, shaken by Van Gogh, will become secondary. The bourgeois are horrified. The movement named Fauvisme by them was born.
Executed in 1905 (or perhaps 1906), the oil on canvas, 65 x 81cm, for sale by Christie's in New York on May 4, is a centerpiece of this experimental period.
It is a landscape of suburban Paris, with small scattered houses separated by their gardens. It is such a commonplace that this view could be what an amateur photographer captures from his window. Composition has not the originality of a Derain, the line has not the strength of a Van Gogh.
But the boldly applied colors are pure, like from the tube: yellow, blue, green, with details in vermilion distributed all over the surface.
This Vlaminck so close to a Van Gogh is expected at $ 18M. It is illustrated in the article shared by Art Market Monitor.
As early as 1906, Vollard will buy paintings by Vlaminck.
POST SALE COMMENT
With this result, $ 22.5 million including premium, the early paintings of Vlaminck have demonstrated their importance in art history. Derain's work had achieved a similar feat in June 2010.
He shares with Derain an artist's studio in Chatou. Success is not to go, and all experiments are possible. The visit made by the two friends to an exhibition of the works of Van Gogh excites Vlaminck, who finds his style.
The idea is powerful: only the color should dominate the painting, and it must be pure. The figure, realistic among Impressionists, shaken by Van Gogh, will become secondary. The bourgeois are horrified. The movement named Fauvisme by them was born.
Executed in 1905 (or perhaps 1906), the oil on canvas, 65 x 81cm, for sale by Christie's in New York on May 4, is a centerpiece of this experimental period.
It is a landscape of suburban Paris, with small scattered houses separated by their gardens. It is such a commonplace that this view could be what an amateur photographer captures from his window. Composition has not the originality of a Derain, the line has not the strength of a Van Gogh.
But the boldly applied colors are pure, like from the tube: yellow, blue, green, with details in vermilion distributed all over the surface.
This Vlaminck so close to a Van Gogh is expected at $ 18M. It is illustrated in the article shared by Art Market Monitor.
As early as 1906, Vollard will buy paintings by Vlaminck.
POST SALE COMMENT
With this result, $ 22.5 million including premium, the early paintings of Vlaminck have demonstrated their importance in art history. Derain's work had achieved a similar feat in June 2010.
1905 Derain and the Colors of Collioure
2010 SOLD 16.3 M£ including premium
The French Mediterranean coast is renowned for its superb light. Two small ports, St. Tropez and Collioure, were particularly inspiring to young artists for a hundred and thirty years.
During the summer of 1905, Matisse and Derain are resident in Collioure. André Derain is 25 years old. Comparing painting to dynamite, he explodes the colors in his port scenes and views to the sea.
The big question is to decide whether or not to imitate the style of Signac, who preceded the two artists in this small village. Some paintings by Derain, that year, are pointillist while others are not. If he had maintained such creativity for many years, he would be one of the outstanding painters of his time.
With broad points closer to Seurat, some boats in Collioure with nice reflections, 60 x 73 cm, earned $ 14 million including premium at Sotheby's on November 4, 2009.
On June 22 in London, the same house will auction some trees in the countryside, with a small house in the distance. This oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, is made with pure color, and again with a strong pointillism that creates a particularly successful light effect. It is estimated £ 9 million, and is illustrated in the press release shared by AuctionPublicity.
The painting, that had belonged to Vollard, is fresh on the market, after having been forgotten in a bank vault because of the tragedies of the Second World War.
POST SALE COMMENT
The pieces which are fresh on the market have always an advantage. This painting made in Derain's best year was sold £ 16.3 million including premium.
During the summer of 1905, Matisse and Derain are resident in Collioure. André Derain is 25 years old. Comparing painting to dynamite, he explodes the colors in his port scenes and views to the sea.
The big question is to decide whether or not to imitate the style of Signac, who preceded the two artists in this small village. Some paintings by Derain, that year, are pointillist while others are not. If he had maintained such creativity for many years, he would be one of the outstanding painters of his time.
With broad points closer to Seurat, some boats in Collioure with nice reflections, 60 x 73 cm, earned $ 14 million including premium at Sotheby's on November 4, 2009.
On June 22 in London, the same house will auction some trees in the countryside, with a small house in the distance. This oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, is made with pure color, and again with a strong pointillism that creates a particularly successful light effect. It is estimated £ 9 million, and is illustrated in the press release shared by AuctionPublicity.
The painting, that had belonged to Vollard, is fresh on the market, after having been forgotten in a bank vault because of the tragedies of the Second World War.
POST SALE COMMENT
The pieces which are fresh on the market have always an advantage. This painting made in Derain's best year was sold £ 16.3 million including premium.
