MASTERPIECES BY NINETEENTH CENTURY FRENCH PAINTERS

OCTOBER—NOVEMBER, 1930

KNOEDLER GALLERIES 14 EAST 57th STREET, NEW YORK

CATALOGUE CT3 FOREWORD

N organising this exhibition, our one aim has been to bring together, chosen with the greatest care, and with all our powers of discrimination, a number of pictures by the great masters of the nineteenth century, of capital importance both from the aesthetic and historic point of view.

If we were called on to classify the constituents of this exhibition, we should say that it comprised representative examples of every school of the nineteenth century, Corot and Delacroix those of the Barbizon School, Degas and Renoir of Impressionism (Puvis de Chavannes having a place apart as an independent)—and finally Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh, and later Lautrec for the school that is called Post- Impressionist, very completely represented here—a school that has not ceased to exercise for the last thirty years a decisive influence on the development of modern painting.

May we add that with the exception of " La Parade " by Seurat—immortal masterpiece, the last of his six large canvases that is not yet in a public museum—none of these pictures has up till now been seen in the United States. To bring together paintings of such importance has neces­ sitated much work and preparation. We feel ourselves, how­ ever, well rewarded by the result of our toil, since it has enabled us to submit to the judgment of critics, students of art and collectors of this country a selection of pictures of the first order newly gathered from some of the most important private European collections. ETIENNE BIGNOU. PAUL CEZANNE (1839—1906)

ATTACKED as few artists had ever been attacked before, ignored by the official powers and assailed with insults by the Press, Cezanne, ten years after his death, was the dominating influence in European painting. The effect of his work has been with­ out limits on modern art. He became the centre of reaction against Impressionism, driven by an inflexible resolution main­ tained to the day of his death to rediscover the laws that had produced the c/assic picture. This intense spirit of organisation that is our admiration in Egyptian, Grecian and Roman art, Cezanne introduced into modern painting. His pictures are Pyramids, solid at their base, organised in every detail of their construction. A worthy successor of Delacroix and of the French masters of colour, his own use of colour comes from the depths of his spirit, sober, shining, solemn.

By his stern self-discipline he assured to the school of the present day his own unflinching adherence to that sense of organisation. Having prepared his house, the way was clear for its youthful inmates to give full expression to the lyrical freedom that is their dominant quality. French painting experienced an upheaval and regeneration at the hand of the Aix master, as, earlier, Delacroix had renewed its youth, and as twenty years later Matisse was to renew it again. "PORTRAIT D'HOMME" Canvas : 28 J x 23I inches. Painted about 1888-89.

Reproduced in "Burlington Magazine," London, June, 1930. Reproduced in " Daily News and Chronicle," London, June, 1930. Reproduced in "Sphere," London, July, 1930. Exhibited at " Renoir and the Post-Impressionists," London, June—July, 1930. No. 9 of the catalogue. From the collection of Monsieur A. Vollard, Paris.

"PORTRAIT DE MADAME CEZANNE, EN BLEU " Canvas : 29 x 24 inches. Painted about 1892.

From the collection of Monsieur A. Vollard, Paris. From the collection of Mr. Halversen, Stockholm. JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT (1796—1875)

BORN in Paris, July, 1796.

There is no need to dilate upon the supreme merit of this great artist, so well known throughout the world, whose whole life has been recorded by his friends Robaut and Moreau Nelaton in the very accurate catalogue of his works, " l'CEuvre de Corot."

Nothing indeed can be added to his fame. He was the leader of the " Barbizon School" and perhaps the greatest Painter of the 19th century; it will suffice to quote the phrase which sums up his whole activity, " What he tried to paint was not so much Nature herself as the love he felt for Nature." (Gustave Collin.)

He died in Ville d'Avray, near Paris, on the 22nd of February, 1875. 3. "PORTRAIT DE MADEMOISELLE DE FOUDRAS"

Canvas : 34 x 23 inches. Signed on the right. Painted in 1872.

Described and reproduced in " l'CEuvre de Corot" by A. Robaut (Floury, Paris, 1905), Vol. III., No. 2,133, Page 292.

Reproduced in " Cahiers d'Art," Paris, July, 1930.

Reproduced in " Founes," Paris, July, 1930.

Reproduced in J. Meier-Graefe "Corot" (B. Cassirer und Klinkhardt und Biermann, Publishers, Berlin, 1930), Plate 143.

Exhibited at the " Centenaire de Corot," Galliera Palais, Paris, 1895. No. 59 of the catalogue.

Exhibited at the McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, 1920.

Exhibited at "Cent Ans de Peinture Fran9aise," Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June, 1930. No. 3 of the catalogue.

From the collection of Mr. Emile Dekens, Bruxelles. EDGAR DEGAS (1834—1917)

EDGAR DEGAS was born on 19th July, 1834, and died on the 26th September, 1917. He began his career with the pleiades of young artists whose names—Manet, Monet, Renoir and Sisley—are now famous throughout the whole world.

Classified by certain people with the "Impressionist" school, whose cause and struggles he partly espoused, Degas remained, in spite of all, a " Classic " ; following, with a more modern vision, the great French tradition of the 18th Century. An unerring draughtsman, with a clear incisive line, he interested himself especially in the study of the human form, searching in its attitudes and silhouettes for the expression of life without which no work of art can ever endure.

Nothing more apt has been written about Degas than the following remarks by Roger Marx, one of the leading French Art Critics and an intimate friend of the master :—

"... A hatred of falsehood, artificiality and vagueness, that exacts from every work the quintessence of life and reality ; a pessimist, uncompromising and cruel, and master of the subtlest reduction of colours ; the purest science in the service of the boldest invention, a robust talent accessible to the lightest indications of refinement and degradation that this ancient civilisation can show; a sense of the modern, so sharpened that it reveals in its penetration something beyond the moment it sets forth, ' leternel du transitoire.'—These characteristics, contrasts and gifts cause Degas (a bizarre artist in the eyes of the vulgar) to be recognised as the most classic of the national masters of the end of the nineteenth century." 4. "PORTRAIT DE DIEGO MARTELLI"

Canvas : 43^ x 39^ inches. Signed on the right. Painted in 1879.

Mentioned in " Degas " by Paul Lafond (H. Floury, Paris,

Mentioned in "Degas" by G. Coquiot (Ollendorf, Paris, 1924), page 218.

Reproduced in colour in " Edgar Degas" by J. B. Manson (Geoffrey Holme, Publisher, London, 1927), Plate 37.

Exhibited at the McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, 1920.

Exhibited at" Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture of the French School of the last hundred years," Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1922 (No. 38 of the catalogue).

Exhibited at " The Kirkcaldy Art Gallery Inaugural Loan Exhibition," 1925.

Exhibited at the "Tate Gallery," London, 1926-7. Exhibited at " Cent Ans de Peinture Francaise," Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June, 1930, No. 14 of the catalogue.

From Degas' Sale, Paris, May, 1918 (No. 58 of the catalogue).

From the collection of Mrs. R. A. Workman, London. EUGENE DELACROIX (1798—1863)

ONE is born either a visionary or a realist. Delacroix only believed in poetry, and dramatic poetry at that.

It was an age when the sublime was the comrade always by the painter's side ; the painter's, the playwright's and the poet's. This romantic crisis, a reaction in itself, against the Roman classicism, what form was it going to take with the painters ? Delacroix amongst living painters was assuredly the most essentially a painter. He was a handsome man with black hair, violent, proud, cultivated, with just that desperation in his soul that makes it forever a field of strife. He was noble of spirit and noble of stature, with the artist's anxious heart. So much for the man ; what of his Art.

He dreamt of war and found it amongst the wild beasts that he hunted in Africa, horses that paw the air, the proud bearing of the Moroccan Arab, the echoing dramas of the past, the whirl of great events, the sufferings of mighty spirits.

His colour is the most sumptuous in French Art. His influence still holds its sway over generations of the young, and Baudelaire very rightly placed him amongst the greatest in his celebrated poem, " Les Phares." 5. "CHEVAUX A L'ABREUVOIR"

Canvas : 29 x 36J inches. Signed on the left. Dated 1862.

Described and reproduced in "Eugene Delacroix" by A. Robaut (Paris 1885) No. 1442 of the catalogue. Reproduced in " Delacroix " by J. Meier-Graefe (R. Piper und Co., Munich, 1922). Page 236. Exhibited at "Cent Ans de Peinture Francaise," Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June, 1930. No. 7 of the catalogue. Exhibited at "Exposition Eugene Delacroix," Louvre Museum, Paris, July-September, 1930. From the collection of Prince de Wagram, Paris. IT is only a few years since Gauguin's name was revealed to the general Public. This belated recognition is mainly due to the master's life-long passionate independence. His nature, with its savage but magnificent atavism, always pushed him towards' an unrealisable dream of space, ruggedness and domination. He was upheld by the power of a wonderful faith . . . ("Gauguin" by Robert Rey.) Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848. He went with his family to Peru in 1852, when his father died. All Gauguin's life was dominated by the attraction of the sea, of the remotest islands, of naked races, of a sun that is never hidden by clouds. At the age of 17 Gauguin joined the French mercantile marine, and again experienced the attraction of those foreign lands which was to dominate his whole future career. Subse­ quently he entered a stockbroker's firm and remained there for eleven years. On Sundays he painted "for fun," and soon met Guillaumin, Monet, Pissarro and Cezanne, and held his first exhibition with them in 1880. After visiting Normandy and Denmark, he came back to Paris in 1885, went to Pont-Aven (Brittany)in 1886, and left for the island of Martinique in 1887. In 1888 Gauguin held his first private exhibition in Paris, and accepted from Van Gogh an invitation to go and work with him at Aries. From 1891 up to 1893 Gauguin lived in Tahiti island. There only this " superbe orgueilleux" found the moral peace and tranquillity he had been looking for. After a brief return to France, he left again, in the Spring of 1895, for Tahiti, where he spent his last years. His letters to his friend Daniel de Montfried show what privations and sufferings he endured while over there. Gauguin died at the Marquesas Islands in May, 1903. 6. " L'OFFRANDE " Canvas : z6f x 30J inches. Signed on the left. Dated 1902.

Reproduced in " Gauguin" by Ch. Maurice (H. Floury, Paris, 1918). Page 16. Reproduced in " Paul Gauguin " by Wilhelm Barth (Benno Silnvabe & Co., Basle, 1929. Plate 39.) Reproduced in "Apollo," London, July, 1930. Exhibited in " Erste Sonderausstellung," Berlin, January- February, 1927. No. 101 of the catalogue. Exhibited in the "Exposition Paul Gauguin," Berlin, October, 1928. No. 77 of the catalogue. Reproduced on page 39. Exhibited at " Renoir and the Post-Impressionists, June-July, 1930, London. No. 13 of the catalogue. From a private collection, Germany.

7. "TE POI-POI" Canvas : 27 x 36\ inches. Signed on the left. Dated '92. Reproduced in " Cahiers d'Art," Paris, July, 1930. Exhibited at " Cent Ans de Peinture Francaise," Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June, 1930. No. 29 of the catalogue and reproduced. From the collection of Mr. A. Vollard, Paris. From the collection of Mr. Max Pellequer, Paris. VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853—1890)

BORN in Holland in 1853, Vincent Van Gogh was the son of a clergyman and brother of one of the leading experts of the Goupil Gallery which he joined for a short time in the London Branch before giving himself up entirely to painting.

He had a noble character, true, open, alert, with a certain sense of humour. His simple letters prove him to have been a true friend, and inexorable judge, with no selfishness or ambition. In these letters he is just as much himself as in his numerous canvases. (From " Lettres de Vincent Van Gogh a Emile Bernard "). His incisive and characteristic draughtsmanship, so accurate and typical, together with his broad and easy brush work have made him known to the present generation as one of the greatest painters of the latter end of the 19th century.

He died in France in 1890. 8. "LA CUEILLETTE DES OLIVES"

Canvas : 28 J x 36J inches- Painted November, 1889.

Reproduced in "Vincent" by J. Meier-Graefe (R. Piper und Co., Munich, 1922). Plate 64. Reproduced in " Van Gogh " by C. Glaser. Plate 15. Reproduced in " Van Gogh " by Kurt Pfister. Reproduced in "Van Gogh" by Florent Fels (H. Floury, Paris, 1928). Page 143. Reproduced in " Cahiers d'Art," Paris, July, 1930. Reproduced in " L'Art Vivant," Paris, July, 1930. Mentioned in " Lettres a son frere," volume III., letters 617, 619, 621. Described in " L'CEuvre de Vincent Van Gogh " by J. B. de la Faille (Van Oest, Paris, 1928). Vol. I.,No. 656, page 186. Reproduced in Vol. II. Plate 183. Exhibited at " l'Exposition Internationale de Cologne," 1912. No. 96 of the catalogue. Exhibited at " Cent Ans de Peinture Francaise," Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June, 1930. No. 30 of the catalogue, and reproduced. From the collection of Dr. Fritz A. Molle, Breslau. From the collection of Julius Stern, Berlin. PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES (1824—1898)

SERENITY and nobility of mind. These are the characteristics that the student and admirer recognises in Puvis de Chavannes first and foremost. And they are indeed the qualities which none can deny to the great Polytechnician who abandoned mathematics for painting in the grand manner. A native of Lyon, that teeming city of manufacturers and men of science, a passionate student of history, Puvis de Chavannes, inspired by the great fresco painters of Italy, a pupil of the Romantics, brought into French art a sense of balance and of purity which, though it caused much scandal at the time, gained, eventually, universal admiration the day he enriched the glories of the Pantheon with his Legend of St. Genevieve.

He was an artist of independent spirit who by the momentum of his intentions rather than his technique cleared a way for the liberating movements of Impressionism and Cezanne. He was the epitome of the great tradition. 9. "LE RETOUR DE L'ENFANT PRODIGUE"

Canvas : 36£ X 49 inches. Signed on the left.

Exhibited at " Cent Ans de Peinture Franchise," Galeries Georges Petit, Paris. June, 1930. No. 11 of the catalogue.

From the collection of Prince de Wagram, Paris. AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841—1920)

BORN in Limoges in February, 1841, Renoir was, at first, a porcelain painter, then a roller-blind painter. He decided a few years later to study art, and by means of his savings joined the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and worked in the studio of Gleyre, a well-known painter of his time, where he met Sisley and Monet. He became their intimate friend and enrolled him­ self under the same banner, which later led the Impressionist school to victory. He was a most prolific painter, and throughout his long life he could hardly remember a day he had not used the paint brush. " Je ne crois pas, disait-il, sauf cas de force majeure, 6tre reste un seul jour sans peindre." Although he had travelled a lot through Algeria, in Brittany, Normandy and Burgundy, he did not seek for special places where he could find his wonderful landscapes to take them as models. " On peut si bien peindre aux Batignolles," he was wont to say at the time Gauguin was leaving for Tahiti. (Renoir, by Albert Andr6). On passing in review the bulk of his work, one can see that he was, above all, the painter of woman. His nudes are always full of charm. . . . From his " Oeuvre" emerges a very original and singular feminine type, that of the young Parisian girl from the hourgeohe to the working girl. To this Parisian girl of the second half of the 19th century Renoir gave a grace and character which recall in more ways than one, the charm that the 18th century painters gave to another world and an entirely different class of woman. . . ." (Histoire des Peintres Impressionnistes by Theodore Duret, H. Floury, Paris, 1906). Renoir is the most seductive painter of the Impressionist school. Painter of colour and joy ; the only one who never painted a sad picture. He is the most essentially French of all. He can, indeed, be considered as one of the greatest painters of the Impressionist School. 10. "FEMME NUE A SA TOILETTE" (Called " La Perle." Called " La Boulangere."

Canvas : 46 X 35 inches. Signed on the right. Painted at Paris in 1895-96.

Reproduced in " Renoir, peintre du nu" (Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 1923). Plate 16. Mentioned in " Renoir " by Gustave Coquiot (Albin Michel, Paris, 1925). Page 229.

Exhibited at " Renoir and the Post-Impressionists," London, June-July, 1930. No. 6 of the catalogue.

From the collection of Monsieur Durand-Ruel, Paris.

From the collection of Prince de Wagram, Paris. GEORGES SEURAT (1859—1891)

GEORGES SEURAT was born in Paris in 1859 and died there in 1891. He had, therefore, scarcely ten years in which to create the technique of " Pointillisme." In this short time he became the leader of that school of" neo-impressionism " which was not only to exercise a predominating influence on French Painting at the end of the nineteenth century, but to clear the way for the painters of our own time, and be for them also a profound inspiration.

Son of a well-to-do family Seurat found time for a pro­ longed study of the Old Masters, and was, above all, attracted by Eugene Delacroix. He exhibited his first work (a life-sized drawing of the painter Aman Jean) at the Palais de l'lndustrie, Pans, in 1883, but the first important manifestation of his power was "La Baignade" (now in the Tate Gallery) exhibited at the " Salon des Artistes ind6pendants " with whom he continued to show his pictures till his death.

There are in existence only six large pictures by Seurat "Un dimanche d'M a la Grande Jatte" (Art Institute, Chicago) ; " Les Poseuses " (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia);' "La Baignade" (National Gallery, Millbank, Tate Gallery, London); " Le Cirque " (Louvre Museum, Paris) ; " Le chahut" (Krohler Museum, The Hague) ; «La Parade" (exhibited here).

The following extract from Monsieur Paul Signac's book "D'Eugene Delacroix au Neo-Impressionnisme " may be of interest to visitors to this exhibition. Monsieur Paul Signac was one of the most faithful of Georges Seurat's disciples, and is especially qualified to speak of his Art and the end they had in view.

"The Neo-Impressionists," wrote Monsieur Signac, "are those who originated, and since 1886, have developed the technique known as division, which sought to find its method of expression by forming an optical mingling of tones and tints. Mindful of the permanent laws of their art, rhythm, equilibrium and contrast, these artists have arrived at the conclusions that find expression in this technique through a desire to reach a degree of luminosity, colour and harmony impossible, in their view, to obtain by other means." It is not an uncommon error to suppose that u neo- impressionists" are painters who cover their canvases with innumerable multi-coloured dots of paints. This mediocre use of the coloured point has nothing whatever to do with the aesthetic of the neo-impressionists nor with that technique of division that they employ. The n£o-impressionist does not make points of colour, but divides it. Now to divide is : To make sure of obtaining every possible quality of colour and harmony by :— i. An optical mingling of pigments which are, in their unique form (pure), all the tints of the prism and all its tones. 2. The separation of various elements (local colour and light and their reactions, etc.). 3. The equilibrium of these elements and their proportions (according to the laws of contrast, graduation and iridescence). 4. The choice of a scale of division proportionate to the size of the picture. The method formulated in these paragraphs will serve to regulate the theory of colour for neo-impressionists. Most of them will, moreover, apply those more mysterious laws which govern lines and their direction and assure their harmony and the beauty of their arrangement. Thus confident of his line and colour, the artist will form a clear conception of the linear and chromatic composition of his picture and appropriate for his subject its dominant requirements of tone and colour." 11. "LA PARADE" Canvas : 39^ x 59J inches. Painted in 1887.88. Signed on the right.

Described and reproduced in " L'Art Decoratif" by Lucie Cousturier. Paris, June, 1912.

Reproduced in "L'Art Moderne " (Bernheim-Jeune & Cie., publishers, Paris, 1919). Plate 151.

Mentioned in "Seurat" by Gustave Coquiot (Albin Michel, publisher, Paris, 1924). Page 248. Reproduced on page 80.

Reproduced in the " Peinture Modern" by Ozenfant & Jeanneret (G. Cres, publisher, Paris, 1925). Page 80.

Reproduced in the "Evening News," Glasgow, April, 1929.

Reproduced in " Cahiers d'Art," Paris, July, 1930.

Reproduced in "L'Art Vivant," Paris, July, 1930.

Mentioned in " Seurat" by Lucie Cousturier (G. Cres, publisher, Paris, 1926). Page 12.

Exhibited in the "Troisieme Exposition des Independants," Paris, 1888. Exhibited in the "Exposition Posthume Georges Seurat," Galeries de la Revue Blanche, Paris, 1892. Exhibited in the " Exposition Retrospective Georges Seurat " at the Cours la Reine, Paris, 1905.

Exhibited in the "Exposition Georges Seurat," Paris, December, 1908—January, 1909. No. 69 of the catalogue.

Exhibited in the "Exposition Georges Seurat," Paris, January, 1920. No. 28 of the catalogue and reproduced. Exhibited in " Soirees de Paris, Exposition de l'Art au Music- Hall, au Theatre et au Cirque," organised at " La Cigale." Paris, May-June, 1924. No. 38 of the catalogue. Exhibited at " Exposition d'CEuvres des XIXe et XXe Siecles," au benefice de l'Hopital St. Michel, Paris, June-July, 1925. No. 116 of the catalogue. Exhibited in the exhibition " Les dessins de Seurat," Paris, November-December, 1926. Reproduced in the catalogue. Exhibited in Trente Ans d'Art Ind6pendant," Grand Palais, Paris, 1926.

Exhibited in the " Exposition de Peintures de l'Ecole Im- pressionniste et Neo-Impressionniste," Lucerne,February, 1929. No. 20 of the catalogue.

Exhibited in the exhibition " Ten Masterpieces by XlXth Century French Painters, Glasgow, April, 1929. No. 8 of the catalogue.

Exhibited in the exhibition " Masterpieces by Nineteenth Century French Painters," London, June, 1929. No. 7 of the catalogue.

Exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art "First Loan Exhibition," New York, November, 1929. No. 55 of the catalogue.

Exhibited at " Cent Ans de Peinture Francaise," Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June, 1930. No. 31 of the catalogue. From the Seurat family.

From the collection of Monsieur Felix Feneon, Paris, 1893. HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (1864—1901)

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC was born in Albi in 1864. He spent his youth in Paris, and studied first in Leon Bonnat's studio, then with Cormon, where he met Van Gogh.

He had a genius that knew no mercy. Heir to one of the oldest noble families of France, ill-treated by Nature who made him a sort of dwarf always in suffering, he seemed to take bitter pleasure in the study of modern vice. He represented music-hall scenes and ordinary life with intense truth.

" It has been said that he liked ugliness. In a sense this is true enough, but he never exaggerated but recorded power­ fully what he saw. . . . This sad psychologist was a great painter. . . . The two big influences Lautrec received were the Japanese and Degas." (Camile Mauclair " L'Impressionnisme ").

" Lautrec is a draughtsman and a colourist, and he is psychologist; his aristocratic feeling gives importance and style to human beings painted and degraded." (Paul Jamot). 12. "PORTRAIT DE MONSIEUR MAXIME DETHOMAS AU BAL DE L'OPERA"

fMaxime Dethomas is the artist who decorated the Theatre National de POpera, Paris. He is the brother-in-law of the Spanish painter, Zuloaga.

Cardboard : 26^ x 2o| inches. Signed on the right and dated '96.

Reproduced in "Illustrated London News," London, June, 1930. Reproduced in u Apollo," London, July, 1930.

Mentioned in "Toulouse-Lautrec" by Gustave Coquiot (Ernst Wasmuth), Berlin), page 56, and reproduced, plate 28. Described in " Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec" by Maurice Joyant (H. Floury, Paris, 1926), page 294, and reproduced page 236.

Exhibited in the " Musee des Arts D£coratifs," Paris,i9io. No. 19 of the catalogue.

Exhibited in the "Retrospective de PCEuvre de H. de Toulouse-Lautrec," Paris, June-July, 1914. No. 13 of the catalogue.

Exhibited in "Renoir and the Post-Impressionists," London, June-July, 1930. No. 20 of the catalogue and reproduced.

From the collection of Monsieur Ch. Paquement, Paris. $(OTES S^OTES J. MILES & CO. LTD., PRINTERS TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING WARDOUR STREET tONDON, W. I