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Lot Essay
Maïthe Vallès-Bled and Godelieve de Vlaminck will include this painting in their forthcoming Vlaminck catalogue raisonné being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
Painted circa 1905, Portrait de femme is a striking picture that dates from the very highpoint of Maurice de Vlaminck's Fauve period. The bold colours of this picture emphasise the bold gaze of its subject, who appears to be a part of the Bohemian world that Vlaminck so enthusiastically embraced. She is wearing a necklace, but no other clothes are visible. Even if she were wearing an extremely low-cut dress, the artist's decision to omit it from his composition adds an overt sexuality to the painting, one that is only increased by the intense look that the sitter is casting in the viewer's direction.
The intense colours that make up Portrait de femme perfectly demonstrate the fire that Vlaminck sought to light within the realms of the art of his day: 'I heightened all tones. I transposed into an orchestration of pure colours all the feelings of which I was conscious. I was a barbarian, tender and full of violence. I translated by instinct, without any method, not merely an artistic truth but above all a human one. I crushed and botched the ultramarines and vermilions though they were very expensive and I had to buy them on credit' (Vlaminck, quoted in J. Rewald, Vlaminck: His Fauve Period, exh. cat., New York, 1968, p. 3). This creates an almost electric immediacy in Portrait, which burns and shimmers on the canvas.
Despite his interest in painting with unmixed colours in order to create a visual explosion, in Portrait de femme, Vlaminck has mixed the colours with a greater sensibility than in his landscapes from the same period. Indeed, the rosy cheeks of the sitter, while still intense in comparison to the other portraits being painted at this time, recall the pictures that Van Dongen was only just now beginning to paint, as do some of the modulated tones of the flesh.
Painted circa 1905, Portrait de femme is a striking picture that dates from the very highpoint of Maurice de Vlaminck's Fauve period. The bold colours of this picture emphasise the bold gaze of its subject, who appears to be a part of the Bohemian world that Vlaminck so enthusiastically embraced. She is wearing a necklace, but no other clothes are visible. Even if she were wearing an extremely low-cut dress, the artist's decision to omit it from his composition adds an overt sexuality to the painting, one that is only increased by the intense look that the sitter is casting in the viewer's direction.
The intense colours that make up Portrait de femme perfectly demonstrate the fire that Vlaminck sought to light within the realms of the art of his day: 'I heightened all tones. I transposed into an orchestration of pure colours all the feelings of which I was conscious. I was a barbarian, tender and full of violence. I translated by instinct, without any method, not merely an artistic truth but above all a human one. I crushed and botched the ultramarines and vermilions though they were very expensive and I had to buy them on credit' (Vlaminck, quoted in J. Rewald, Vlaminck: His Fauve Period, exh. cat., New York, 1968, p. 3). This creates an almost electric immediacy in Portrait, which burns and shimmers on the canvas.
Despite his interest in painting with unmixed colours in order to create a visual explosion, in Portrait de femme, Vlaminck has mixed the colours with a greater sensibility than in his landscapes from the same period. Indeed, the rosy cheeks of the sitter, while still intense in comparison to the other portraits being painted at this time, recall the pictures that Van Dongen was only just now beginning to paint, as do some of the modulated tones of the flesh.