Fleurs décoratives

Details

Georges Rouault (1871-1958)
Fleurs décoratives
signed 'G. Rouault' (lower right)
oil on paper laid down on canvas
44 5/8 x 30¾ in. (113.3 x 78 cm.)
Painted in 1937

Provenance

Alex.Reid & Lefevre, Ltd, London and Etienne Bignou, New York.
Mr. and Mrs. Edward G. Robinson, Beverly Hills (acquired from the above, 1938).
M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1957.

Literature

M. Seton, "Edward G. Robinson's Collection," The Studio, December 1939, p. 240.
L. Venturi, Georges Rouault, New York, 1940, p. 76, fig. 176, (illustrated, pl. 146).
A. Miller, "Edward G. Robinson's Collection--An Interview," Art in America, vol. 32, no. 4, October 1944, p. 228.

Exhibited

Berlin, Preussischen Akademie der Künste, Ausstellung
Französische Kunst der Gegenwart, June-July 1937, no. 255.
New York, Bignou Gallery, The Tragic Painters, February-March 1938, no. 7 (illustrated).
London, Alex Reid & Lefevre Ltd., The Tragic Painters, June 1938, no. 15 (illustrated).
(possibly) Los Angeles County Museum, Mr. and Mrs. Edward G. Robinson Collection, June-July 1941 (as Large Still Life).
Los Angeles County Museum, Thirty Masterpieces of Modern French Art from the Edward G. Robinson Collection, July-September 1949, no. 24.
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, and Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, Forty Paintings from the Edward G. Robinson Collection, March-June 1953, no. 27 (illustrated).
New York, Wildenstein Gallery, Magic of Flowers in Painting for the Benefit of Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association, April-May 1954, no. 68.
Los Angeles County Museum, and San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Gladys Lloyd Robinson and Edward G. Robinson Collection, September 1956-January 1957, no. 55 (illustrated; as The Vase of Flowers).
New York, M. Knoedler & Co., Inc.; Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, and Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, A Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture from the Niarchos Collection, December 1957-April 1958, pp. 112 and 114, no. 53 (illustrated, p. 113; as The Vase of Flowers; with incorrect medium), no. 55 (Boston venue).
London, The Tate Gallery, The Niarchos Collection, May-June 1958, p. 12, no. 56 (illustrated, pl. 56).
Athens, National Picture Galley, The Niarchos Art Collection, August-September 1958, no. 47.
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Sammlung S. Niarchos, January-March 1959, no. 64.

Lot Essay

Isabelle Rouault has confirmed the authenticity of this painting.

In the early 1930s Marie Cuttoli commissioned Rouault to paint his first group of floral still-lifes, which she intended to use as cartoons for tapestries. Approximately thirty canvases were painted by the artist and about ten tapestries were woven by the Aubusson craftsmen between 1930 and 1937. The artist executed this series of Fleurs décoratives using a bright palette and framing the composition with prominent borders, clearly paying homage to the traditional art of tapestry making. Bernard Dorival attributes the prevalence of flowers in the artist's mature work to his spiritual evolution in the post-war years, and to his discovery of "the beauty of nature, and of a Nature in which a radiant sun appears almost constantly...(and of) the beauty of one of the most marvellous of nature's creations: The flower" (B. Dorival and I. Rouault, Rouault, l'oeuvre peint, Monte-Carlo, 1988, vol. II, p. 14).

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