French school; 1955.

French school; 1955.
"Portrait of a girl".
Oil on canvas.
Signed, dated and dedicated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 55 x 46 cm.
This portrait shows the survival and reformulation of the fauvist languages in the postwar painting. Although Fauvism as an organized movement had its peak in the first years of the 20th century, its legacy; the exaltation of pure color, the expressive autonomy of the brushstroke and the subordination of naturalism to the emotional intensity, continued to influence in a decisive way in numerous French artists throughout the following decades.
The composition presents the girl in a serene attitude, seated on a large red armchair that occupies a large part of the pictorial field. The chromatic prominence of the background, bright reds, deep greens and dense blues, does not seek to faithfully reproduce reality, but to build a vibrant and almost tactile space. The face, modeled with greenish and pinkish tones that move away from any academic verism, reveals the direct inheritance of Fauvist chromatic freedom: color does not describe, but interprets. The skin is modulated by bold hallmarks that give volume without resorting to soft gradations, but rather to decisively applied pigment planes.