Maurice de Vlaminck

MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (Paris, 1876- Rueil-la-Gadelière, France, 1958).
"Summer morning".
Oil on canvas.
Signed at lower left.
Provenance:
- Galerie Charpentier, Paris.
- Josephine Pope, New York.
- Estate of Josephine Pope.
- Auction, Christie's, New York, May 9, 1991, no. 238.
- Private collection, Switzerland (circa 1997).
- Auction, Sotheby's, New York, 4 May 2005, no. 366.
- Private collection, Europe.
- Auction, Sotheby's, London, February 6, 2008, no. 536.
- Private Collection, Monaco.
- Auction, Accademia Fine Art, Monaco, June 3, 2021, no. 24.
- Galerie de Cicco, Monaco.
Private collection, Barcelona (acquired in May 2024).
Exhibitions: Galerie Charpentier, Paris, "École de Paris", 1956, no. 5 (label on the back).
This work will be included in the digital Catalogue raisonné of Maurice de Vlaminck currently in preparation under the direction of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute.
A certificate of inclusion issued by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute will be given to the buyer.
Measurements: 60.5 x 73.5 cm.

"Summer Morning" shows the dirt road of a French mountain village, with rustic houses lined up on the left hand side and a meadow with bare trees opening towards the horizon. A woman walks with her back to us along the lonely road, under a leaden sky. The atmosphere is infected by the charge of electricity that pulsates from that overcast sky, so that each element is impregnated with intense tones. This is a prototypical landscape composition of Maurice Vlaminck's plastic work. The stroke is thick, the brushstroke vibrant and energetic, characteristic of Vlaminck's fauve style. However, unlike other fauvist painters, Vlaminck's palette was preeminently somber. The artist extracted in his landscapes premonitory lights of a convulsive time, the interwar period in which he lived.

Maurice Vlaminck was one of the main representatives of Fauvism. A close friend of Derain, it was the latter who introduced him to the world of painting in 1890. His friendship with Derain would last a lifetime. In fact, since September 1900, he shares his studio in Chatou. Vlaminck was one of the painters who caused a scandal at the 1905 Autumn Salon, which received the nickname "cage of wild beasts", giving its name to the movement of which he was a member along with Henri Matisse, André Derain, Raoul Dufy and others. In 1905, together with Matisse, he will be presented at the Salon d'Automne in Paris where they will receive the name of "The Savages" - "Les Fauves"- for their exhibition. In 1913 both artists traveled to Marseilles and Martigues. Around 1940-1945 they meet again at the opening of Arno Bercker's exhibition in Berlin. Vlaminck's first public appearance as an artist occurs in 1905 when, together with Camoin, Marquet, Derain and Matisse, his work is exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and as a result he joins the group of artists known as the Fauves. In 1907 he is impressed by Cézanne's retrospective. During the First World War he lived in Rouen, when he began to write poetry. Vlaminck had previously published two novels, one in 1902 and the other in 1903, both illustrated by Derain. After the war he will travel extensively in France, although most of his works are executed near the Seine, in the vicinity of Paris. His prolific subjects during the World War II period are landscapes and still lifes.