MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (1876-1958)La forêt signed and inscribed 'Vlaminck La forêt' (lower left)oil on canvas81 x 100cm (31 7/8 x 39 3/8in).Painted circa 1907-1908Footnotes:This work is accompanied by an attestation from the Wildenstein Institute. This work will be included in the forthcoming Maurice de Vlaminck Digital Catalogue, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.Please note that this work has been requested for the exhibition Maurice de Vlaminck: Modern Artist Rebel at the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, 14 September 2024 – 12 January 2025.ProvenanceDaniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Paris and Zurich, no. 68 (probably acquired directly from the artist); on consignment with Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Dusseldorf, no. 616, subsequently with Galerie Paul Cassirer, Berlin, no. 17219, from 2 October 1919.Private collection, Berlin and London (acquired in the 1920s).Thence by descent to the present owner.ExhibitedDresden, Kunstsalon Emil Richter.(Possibly) Dusseldorf, Städtischer Kunstpalast, Ausstellung des Sonderbundes Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler, Düsseldorf 1910, 16 July - 9 October 1910, no. 182 (titled 'Der Wald').(Possibly) Dusseldorf, Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Wilhelm Kreis, Max Hünten, Manolo, De Vlaminck, 17 August - 6 September 1919, no. 43 (titled 'Der Wald').'When painting I experienced a source of joy, a constantly renewed pleasure, an intense cerebral excitement... I was in communion with the sky, the trees, the clouds, with life... An unceasingly renewed but fleeting illusion... It was precisely that appearance, continually renewed, always ungraspable that I worked furiously at capturing, at fixing on the canvas in greens, yellows, blues and reds.' - M. de VlaminckUnseen in public for almost a century, La forêt is a luminescent example of Maurice de Vlaminck's liberal and emotional presentation of colour and the evolving modernisation of his style. At the same time the work has a history as rich as its palette, traversing the shifting tides of European art collecting and dealing in the 20th century. Passing through the hands of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Alfred Flechtheim and Paul Cassirer, before being taken to London following the rise of Nazi Germany, the provenance trajectory of the present work encapsulates some of the most fundamental developments in the history of art and of the world.A chance meeting in July 1900, on the same suburban St Germain-en-Laye to Gare St Lazare rail line that had coincidentally brought together Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis some ten years previously, gave birth to a blossoming friendship and to two of Fauvism's most ardent proponents: André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck: 'It is certain that if it had not been for that meeting... the idea would never have entered my mind to make 'Painting' my livelihood!' (M. de Vlaminck, Portraits avant décès, Paris, 1943, p. 13).Together Derain and Vlaminck set up in Chatou, a quiet suburb of Paris, penniless, but nonetheless flush with a burning passion for their impending artistic endeavours. As Renoir and Monet had done in the summer of 1869, the pair worked on the banks of the Seine, inspiring one another in turn and ceaselessly conversing to generate a unique aesthetic. Over the 1900-1905 period, the 'School of Chatou' was born. When apart, the two artists would continue their discussion via letter and Vlaminck kept the entire body of letters written to him by Derain, eventually giving them to the Musée de Chartres. These invaluable notes offer an important insight into the aesthetic development of Derain and, in turn, Vlaminck, offering a gauge on the exchange of ideas, discussion of aesthetics, and questionings that nourished and stimulated the relationship between the young artists.Galerie Bernheim-Jeune's major exhibition of Vincent van Gogh in March 1901 was to have an unimaginably profound effect on Vlaminck, who was 'bowled over' by the Dutch artist's 'revolutionary direction, an almost religious feeling in his interpretation of nature' (M. de Vlaminck, op. cit., 1943, p. 31), an effect we see come to the fore through Vlaminck's later use of lengthened brushstrokes, to give form to his subjects. At this same exhibition, Derain introduced his friend and visionary accomplice to the third Fauve master of colour, Henri Matisse. Matisse later recalled to his son-in-law, Georges Duthuit, the exclamation of Vlaminck at this meeting: 'You see, you have to paint using pure cobalts, pure vermilions, pure Veronese greens!' (Matisse quoted in G. Duthuit, Les Fauves, Braque, Derain, Van Dongen, Dufy, Friesz, Manguin, Marquet, Matisse, Puy, Vlaminck, Geneva, 1949, p. 72).Vlaminck's artistic output in the following years was as monumental as it was influential, ultimately creating an oeuvre of some 6,000 works. He was, however, constantly financially challenged in these early years. Juggling a young family and a voracious appetite for painting, he supplemented his salary as an evening musician by giving violin lessons. As he recalled later, 'I quite often went without the necessaries in order to be able to cover my canvases with colours, which I later scraped off so I could use them again. My most recurrent problem was that I lacked the money to buy tubes and stretchers!' (M. de Vlaminck, Le Ventre ouvert, Paris, 1937, p. 50).This hardship prevented Vlaminck from travelling with Derain and Matisse to the South of France and discovering the light of the Midi. Instead, he remained in the regions along the Seine valley to the west of Paris, travelling by foot and by bicycle in search of the perfect place to paint en plein air. This did not matter for Vlaminck, for his relationship to the landscape, the motif, was instinctive and it was 'far from the intense southern light that Vlaminck's personal style rose to a level on which the colour exploded' (M. Vallès-Bled, Maurice de Vlaminck, La période fauve, 1900-1907, Paris, 2008, p. 37). His emotional and aesthetic attachment to the landscape drew comparisons to Cézanne, who was often drawn back to the views of Mont-Sainte Victoire and the gardens of Jas du Bouffan.Some financial respite was to come later however, from his first dealer Ambroise Vollard. After the preliminary exhibitions of his Fauvist works, Vollard bought up much of his stock and made monthly purchases that allowed Vlaminck to live as a painter. He also played a crucial role in disseminating Vlaminck's works through the frequency of his purchases, his national and international sales and his loans to a wide number of exhibitions. To find himself in such a position however, Vlaminck had to first run the gauntlet of the 1905 Salon d'Automne, a Salon that would secure itself in the annals of art history.'A tremendously bright room, of the most daring, the most extreme, of those whose intentions have to be decoded... At the centre of the room, the torso of a child and a small marble bust by Albert Marquet, whose modelling is a delicate science. The ingenuousness of these busts is striking, set amidst the orgy of pure colours: Donatello amongst the wild beasts' (L. Vauxcelles, 'Le Salon d'Automne', in Gil Blas, 17 October 1905).Thenceforth Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck became known as les Fauves (wild beasts), proudly and defiantly adopting the sobriquet given at the infamous Salon. Now the Fauvists would continue their vivid journey with a new title and exacerbated purpose. As Vlaminck recalls: 'Fauvism was no... This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * AR* VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium.AR Goods subject to Artists Resale Right Additional Premium.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
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