Emile Othon FRIESZ (1879-1949) - Lot 28

Emile Othon FRIESZ (1879-1949) Undergrowth in Honfleur in Autumn (Côte de la Grâce), 1937 Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower left, monogrammed, dated and titled on the back of the canvas and on labels. Inscriptions on the back: inventory no. 1977-11-3 on a label, label Réunion des Musées nationaux, A664/8 and 1977/55) 65 x 81 cm (A few rare craquelures from use, tiny abrasion on the sides and bottom along the frame) Bibliography L'œuvre peint d'Othon Friesz, by Robert Martin and Odile Aittouarès, Editions Aittouarès, Paris, 1995, tome I, illustrated under no. 381 p. 153 Provenance: -Former Kaganovitch collection (label on back) -Sale TAJAN, Paris, 29-03-2000, lot 60 -BRIEST sale, Paris, 04-03-1998, lot 84 -Private collection. Exhibition: -Musée de Peinture de Bordeaux (label on back) Our painting was part of the prestigious collection of dealer Max Kaganovitch (1891-1978). A Russian of Jewish origin who emigrated to Paris in 1924, he studied sculpture, but discovered he had a talent for promoting and trading works of art, particularly Swiss ones (his wife was Swiss). (his wife is Swiss). In 1934, he opened his own gallery in Paris, on Boulevard Raspail, which he named Galerie Max Kaganovitch. A remarkable talent scout, he was the first to exhibit Germaine Richier in pre-war Paris. The gallery held monographic exhibitions of Rouault, Dufy and Friesz in 1937. In more general exhibitions, entitled Oeuvres choisies, he exhibited Bonnard, Vuillard, Derain, Matisse, Utrillo, Braque and Picasso. Max Kaganovitch was also an immense collector. His donation to the Musée d'Orsay was considerable, with 24 works brought together in a single room (Derain's Fauvist Bridge at Charing Cross and Paul Gauguin's Paysanne Bretonne...). In 1937, Othon Friesz was commissioned by the French government as part of the architectural project for that year's International Exhibition. The gigantic Trocadero building site called on many artists: among the painters were Vuillard, Denis and Dufresne, and he shared with his friend Dufy the pictorial decoration of the smoking room at the Théâtre de Chaillot. Friesz and Honfleur. Friesz was a true artist with a long pictorial experience, but he needed to isolate himself and meditate, far from the Parisian artistic milieu. This sometimes led him to move away from the capital and his family. Hence his numerous stays in Saint-Malo and Honfleur, his favorite town, where he spent the summer and autumn of 1937. A letter to his wife seems to prophesize the painting in the Kaganovitch collection: "There's going to be the wonder of autumn as color on the coast, which will renew me a lot." Friesz was one of the leading exponents of Fauvism, extinguishing his palette in 1914. While retaining a sense of synthesis, he adopted the colors of early Cubism, limited to muted browns and greens. The slender rhythm of the forest of trunks, counterpointed by the large, gnarled stump on the left, the cameo of greens, golden yellows and rusty tones of the ground: in a stripped-down language, Friesz here continues the tradition of balance and poetry of French landscape.