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Artist or Maker: Kees van Dongen (1877-1968)
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Provenance: Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris (by 1908).
Dr. and Mrs. A. Roudinesco, Paris (by circa 1932-1949).
Galerie Charpentier (Jean Charpentier), Paris (1949-at least 1962)
Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York (by 1965-1966).
Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York (acquired from the above, 1966).
Gift from the above to the present owner, 1980.
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Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Kahnweiler, van Dongen, March 1908.
Munich, Galerie Thannhauser, 1910.
Berlin, Galerie Paul Cassirer, 1914.
Bordeaux, Musée de Bordeaux, van Dongen, December 1943-January 1944, no. 11 (incorrectly dated 1901).
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, van Dongen exhibition, 1947, no. 46.
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans, Kees van Dongen--Werken van 1894 tot 1949, May-July 1949, no. 25 (illustrated, pl. 8).
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Les Fauves, 1962, no. 128 (illustrated).
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Ecole de Paris, 1962, no. 93.
New York, Leonard Hutton Galleries, van Dongen, November-December 1965 (illustrated in color).
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Notes: Property from The Museum of Modern Art, sold to benefit the Acquisitions Fund
*This lot may be exempt from sales tax as set forth in the Sales Tax Notice in the back of the catalogue.
Van Dongen's early works displayed the influence of the Impressionists; however, in 1904 the artist made his debut in the Paris salons, exhibiting a painting style full of raw emotionality and taking on the ideals and principles which he would subsequently share with the radical Fauve painters. "Disregarding realism, they used color simply with an eye to the picture surface, with only the effect in mind. The stronger the color, the greater its effect, which led them logically to the ultimate step of using color straight from the tube" (J.-P. Crespelle, The Fauves, Greenwich, 1962, p. 30). Van Dongen was highly influenced by Fauve portraits such as Matisse's Femme au chapeau, a pivotal work in the movement and one which had scandalized Parisian critics at the 1905 Salon d'Automne.
Van Dongen was immediately taken with Paris when he arrived there in 1899 from his native town of Delfshaven in Holland. By 1906, the artist had moved to Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, and spent much of his early career among the bistros and bals musettes in search of models for his paintings. Motivated by a bohemian lifestyle and anarchist ideas in resistance to the bourgeoisie, in the following years van Dongen created vivid portraits in which he sought to reveal the raw, inward truths of human personality and desire.
In the present work, van Dongen has focused his attention on a woman whose identity remains a mystery but who is presumably a member of the bourgeoisie. The artist was less concerned with the exact anatomical representation of the female form, preferring instead to focus on the essence of the figure. In the style of his Fauve contemporaries, he employed his trademark emerald green to achieve three-dimensional form in the woman's face. Van Dongen chose to represent his Fauvist ideals mainly through portraiture. The extreme stylization of forms, his preference for bright, rich colors and the avoidance of half-tones and realistic shadows signal characteristics of the artist's method throughout his career.
(fig. 1) Kees van Dongen in his studio, 1909. BARCODE 23659476
