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Dimensions: measurements 25 3/4 by 20 1/8 in. alternate measurements 65.5 by 51 cm
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Provenance: Sale: Christies, New York, May 12, 1988, lot 247
Hilde Gerst Fine Art, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1989
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Notes: The Havrais painter Friesz was one of the last artists to join the Fauve movement. In 1905, he was still painting in an essentially Impressionist manner, and it was only on a trip to Antwerp in 1906 with Georges Braque that Friesz made the dramatic leap towards the Fauve palette and technique that he had so admired during the seminal Salon d'Automne in 1905. John Elderfield states, "In 1906, Braque and Friesz were not even at the stage of colorful subjects... It was only when the pair traveled south, as their colleagues had done before, that their color was fully liberated from the atmospheric and the Impressionist and their Fauve styles were fully established" (J. Elderfield, Fauvism and its Affinities, New York, 1976, p). The present work was likely painted at this pivotal time in the South of France, and the vibrant, saturated coloration of the present work suggests both the enticing colors of Southern France and the revolution taking place in Friesz's painterly style. Fig. 1 The artist with Raoul Dufy and Bouchon, in Bouchon's studio