Maurice de Vlaminck (1876 – 1958)

Maurice de Vlaminck was a French painter and a leading figure in the Fauvist movement, along with Andre Derain and Henri Matisse. Early Vlaminck paintings showed a similarity to those of Vincent van Gogh, but in his later work he used a more muted colour palette. Vlaminck's prints show a different facet of his artistic expression, especially the black and white Vlaminck lithographs.

One of Vlaminck's most popular paintings is the Remorqueur sur la Seine, Chatou (1906). This and other pieces that mainly consisted of primary colour palettes prompted art critic Louis Vauxcelles to term the artists as Fauves (wild beasts) due to their unrestrained manner of painting, which was not common at the time. Many of Vlaminck's Fauve masterpieces were views of the river Seine, the tugboats, barges, yachts, bridges and towpaths seen at Charon, Bougival and Argenteuil.

The present work was painted in 1906 on the banks of the Seine on the outskirts of Paris. Vlaminck rarely left this region during his Fauve years, preferring its surroundings along the river over the busy life of the capital, or landscapes of the south of France, favoured by Matisse, Derain and Braque. He drew inspiration for most of his early landscapes from this region, and later in his life proclaimed: 'All these places that I knew so well, the Seine with its strings of barges, the tugs with their plumes of smoke, the taverns in the suburbs, the colour of the atmosphere, the sky with its great clouds and patches of sun, these were what I wanted to paint'

Le Remorqueur (The tug-boat) lithograph 1958 o

Medium: lithograph. This lithograph (after the Vlaminck painting) was printed in Paris in 1958 by the legendary Mourlot Freres atelier in an edition of 2000. The lithography was supervised by Vlaminck with the assistance of Charles Sorlier, and is a nice impression, as can be expected of Mourlot. Size: 7 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches (image) -- 12 x 9 1/2 inches (total sheet). There are narrow margins on The River Scene at Chatou 1906three sides; beneath the image is Vlaminck's plate signature (see the second photo) -- this lithograph is not hand-signed.

The River Scene at Chatou 1906

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