MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (French, 1876-1958). Normandie, pommiers dans la neige, circa 1930. Oil on canvas. 21-1/4 x 25-1/2 i...

Description

MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (French, 1876-1958)
Normandie, pommiers dans la neige, circa 1930
Oil on canvas
21-1/4 x 25-1/2 inches (54.0 x 64.8 cm)
Signed lower left: Vlaminck
Japanese exhibition label verso

PROVENANCE:
Sotheby's, London, Impressionist & Modern Paintings & Sculpture Part II, March 30, 1988, lot 204;
Collection of Valentine Segal, 1990;
Sotheby's, London, Impressionist & Modern Paintings & Sculpture Part II, April 4, 1990, lot 427;
Christie's, New York, Impressionist & Nineteenth Century Art, May 13, 1999, lot 226 (label verso);
Private collection.

NOTE:
The Wildenstein Institute will include this painting in their forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work.

Inspired by the examples of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cézanne, Maurice Vlaminck, along with Henri Matisse and André Derain, is recognized as a founder of Fauvism, which was the first 20th-century movement in modern art. In their seemingly chaotic compositions, the Fauves, or "Wild Beasts," used bold, non-naturalistic colors to describe light and space in a quest to express an emotional state.

The Fauve movement was short-lived, and by 1908 Vlaminck's compositions were becoming more orderly and his colors subdued. Normandie, pommiers dans la neige from 1930 is the perfect example of the artist's later more orderly style typical for this period. In these later compositions, he used thick paint, squeezed directly from the tube onto the canvas, as a vehicle for expression. In Normandie, pommiers dans la neige, this technique enabled Vlaminck to capture an atmosphere of chaos for this windswept, bitterly cold, infertile snow scene. The viewer is confronted with Vlaminck's raw unmetered emotion, exuded in each brushstroke, which can be both disturbing and calming.




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