Félix Edouard Vallotton (Swiss, 1865-1925) Platanes ébranchés, Cagnes, 1921 Oil on canvas 25-5/8 x 21-3/8 inches (65.1 x 54.3 cm) Signed and dated lower right: F. Vallotton. 21 PROVENANCE: Estate of the artist; Galerie Paul Vallotton, Lausanne, Switzerland; Private collection, Switzerland, by 1967; Private collection, Maryland, by descent from the above. EXHIBITED: (Possibly) Galerie Druet, Paris, "Exposition Félix Vallotton," May 15-26, 1922; Palais de la Méditerranée, Nice, "Peintres à Nice et sur la Côte d'Azur 1860-1960," July-September 1960, no. 144 (as Paysage de Cagnes); Musée de l'Athénée, Geneva, "Paysages de France," July 5-September 22, 1963, no. 61 (as Platanes ébranches à Cagnes); Galleria del Levante, Milan, "Félix Vallotton," October-November 1963, no. 36 (as Platani spogli). LITERATURE: F. Vallotton, Livre de Raison, LRZ 1334 (listing reads "trois platanes ébranchés se découpant sur un ciel rosé, ds le fond Cagnes transparaît. à gauche roseaux. 1r plan d'herbe semée d'epluchure de roseaux."); R. Koella, Das Bild der Landschaft im Schaffen von Félix Vallotton: Wesen, Bedeutung, Entwicklung, Ninove, Belgium, 1969, LK 258; M. Ducrey, Félix Vallotton, 1865-1925, l'œuvre peint, catalogue raisonné, vol. 3, Zurich, 2005, p. 752, no. 1405, illustrated. As a young man working in Paris during the 1890s, Félix Vallotton joined a group of painters associated with the Académie Julian, who sought to distance themselves from the work of the Impressionists who focused on the illusionistic transcription of nature. Dubbing themselves "the Nabis" (from the Hebrew word neblim, prophet), they looked instead to the work of Gauguin, Cézanne, and Japanese prints, seeking to create works of art that evoked mood and atmosphere through a synthesis of metaphors and symbols of their own invention. The objects and scenes that appear in their paintings are often rendered with bold lines and large vivid planes of flat color, emphasizing a basic tenet of Modernism, that "a picture...is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order" (Maurice Denis, Nouvelles théories sur l'art moderne, Paris, 1922, p. 66). Although the movement was short lived and the Nabis went their separate ways after 1900, most of its members enjoyed productive careers, as was the case with the Swiss-French member of the group, Félix Vallotton, nicknamed Étranger (the foreigner). In the years following 1920, the artist spent time in Cagnes, near Nice, where his painting was inspired by the warm, distinctive atmosphere of the south of France. In the present work, Félix Vallotton adopted an inland vantagepoint on the city, looking over its rooftops from the rise of a hill. The view is slightly screened on the right by a trio of pollarded—and quite anthropomorphized—plane trees and a weeping willow to the left. Yellow leaves litter the hill. The field in the middle distance is an emerald green while the sky is a fantastic shade of pink. The palette is astonishingly vibrant and sophisticated—a complex harmony of richly saturated greens, golds, pinks, lavenders, oranges and browns that only a daring artist could calibrate into such a successful chromatic balance. Vallotton's choice to use this secondary color triad for his palette creates an intense mood of seemingly contradictory emotions: unfamiliarity, heat, anticipation (are these colors indicative of a storm brewing?), and a riveting otherworldly stillness. HID12401132022 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice