Maurice de VLAMINCK (1876-1958) [FRANCE] - Lot 12

Maurice de VLAMINCK (1876-1958) [FRANCE] Landscape, 1912 Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. 24 x 33 cm This work will be included in the digital catalog raisonné project being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI). A WPI Notice of Inclusion dated June 3, 2024 will be given to the buyer. Provenance: Sale, Pavillon Gabriel, Paris, June 15, 1977, n°93, Exhibition: Basel, Kunsthalle, "Vlaminck, R. Dufy, Rouault" May 14 - June 8, 1938, no. 216... Since 1910, Vlaminck has lived in "a rustic chalet" in the Bois de la Jonchère, above Bougival, and spent much of his time wandering the surrounding woods (Bois de la Celle, Etang de Saint-Cucufa). Despite a few trips to the bistros of Montmartre, where he met the painter Derain, Vlaminck isolated himself. In his painting, he tried to break out of what he now considered "the cubist impasse". He returned to the origins of modernism, to the mentor of his generation, Paul Cézanne. Our painting illustrates this radical simplicity in the treatment of the motif: the schematization of trunks and foliage, the flatness of the composition, the reduced chromaticism, the subject reduced to the essential. Here, Vlaminck achieves a kind of "minimalism" that can be seen as the culmination of landscape art. Our painting, with its solidity and modesty, is a masterpiece.