Nude

Anto Carte was a carpenter's son and wanted to become a decorator at a young age. At the age of 12 he started following evening classes at the Academy of Bergen, which made him decide to become a professional painter. After he had won a scholarship which enabled him to enroll at the Royal Academy of Brussels under the tutorship of Jean Delville (1867-1953) and Constant Montald (1863-1944), he went to Paris to study theater decoration (between 1911-14). In The Louvre he discovered the French painters Maurice Denis (1870-1943) and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898), and the Italian painters of the Quattrocento. In 1925 he turned to Italy to practice fresco-painting. The Italian influences he first experienced in the Louvre and later on in Italy would stay important throughout his career. The influence of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) is clearly visible in the present lot. Modigliani was known primarily as a portraitist and painted fewer than three dozen nudes, only a small portion of his short life's work, and nearly all of these were done in the years 1916-1918. Influenced by Modigliani, Carte's nudes are sensual and earthy, while the lines of their beauty are idealized and pure.