Kees van Dongen (1877-1968) Recuerdo de Toledo 1908 oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm (39⅜ x 39⅜ in.) signed ‘Van Dongen’ (lower left)
Provenance: Galerie Pétridès, Paris Melas Kyriazi Collection, Switzerland Private Collection, London
Exhibited: Eindhoven, Stedelijk van Abbe Museum, Van Dongen 1877-1937, 1937, no. 19 (erroneously dated 1911) Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Eere-Tentoonstelling van Dongen, December 1937 - January 1938, no. 24 (erroneously dated 1911) Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1942, no. 80 Paris, Galerie Pétridès, Cinquante toiles de maîtres, May - June 1965, no. 29 (illustrated) Lausanne, Galerie Paul Vallotton, Le nu dans l’Ecole de Paris, May - June 1975, no. 29 Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Kees van Dongen, December 1989 - February 1990, no. 32 Paris, Musée d’Art moderne, Van Dongen, le peintre, March - June 1990, pp. 140-141
Literature: J.M. Kyriazi, Le nu féminin dans l’Ecole de Paris, Lausanne, 1975, p. 60 (illustrated in colour; dated 1910) Jacques Chalom des Cordes will include this painting in his forthcoming van Dongen catalogue raisonné being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute
About the artist: Kees van Dongen was born in Delfshaven in 1877. In 1892 he attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam and during this period frequently visited the Red Quarter seaport, where he drew scenes of sailors and prostitutes.
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In 1897 van Dongen moved to Paris where he lived for several months. He returned in 1899 to join Augusta Preitinger whom he married two years later on the 11th July 1901. During his time in Paris van Dongen exhibited his work and participated in the controversial exhibition Salon d’Automne in 1905 along with artists such as Henri Matisse. The bright colours employed by the artists in the exhibition gave them the title of Fauves (‘Wild Beasts’). Van Dongen was also a brief member of the German Expressionist group Die Bruke.
Van Dongen was part of an avant-garde wave of painters which included Maurice de Vlaminck, Othon Friesz, Henri Rousseau, Robert Delaunay, Albert Marquet and Edouard Vuillard. This collection of artists aspired to a renewal of painting that was stuck in neo-impressionism.
In 1906 van Dongen and his wife moved to Bateau Lavoir at 13 rue Ravignan and were part of a circle of friends that included Pablo Picasso and his girlfriend Fernande Olivier. Van Dongen’s income came from selling paintings, organising popular costume balls in Montparnasse and also producing a number of satirical sketches for the newspaper ‘Revue Blanche’. Van Dongen developed the lush colours of his Fauvist style while under the influence of Jasmy Jacob. He was popular amongst the French bourgeoisie and therefore lived a profitable lifestyle. A fashionable portraitist, his subjects included Arletty, Louis Barthou, Sacha Guitry, Leopold III of Belgium, Anna de Noailles and Maurice Chevalier. Van Dongen pinpointed his popularity as a portraitist of high society women by remarking, ‘The essential thing is to elongate the women and especially to make them slim. After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels. They are ravished.’ ‘Painting is the most beautiful of lies’ was another of his famous sayings.
In 1926 van Dongen was awarded the Legion of Honour and in the following year received the Order of the Crown of Belgium. In 1929 he received French nationally and two of his works were admitted to the Musee du Luxembourg.
Kees van Dongen died at home in Monte Carlo in 1968. Unfortunately his later works, which include a portrait of Brigitte Bardot, lacked the social and commercial appeal of his earlier pieces.
30 Cork St. London W1S 3NG | 5-7 Dover St. London W1S 4LD T +44 (0) 20 7287 7750 F +44 (0) 207 287 7751 [email protected] www.alonzakaim.com