拍品專文
Discussing the artist's still lifes of this period, Monroe Wheeler notes:
He painted several canvases of more or less the same
vaseful, and the point of his fascination and research
in them all seems to have been the play of thick but
sinuous stems and flaring red blossoms. It may not
have been so much the true forms of the leaves and
petals which appealed to him as the blood-redness, fire-redness, which he rendered like little licking
flames. (exh. cat., Soutine, 1950, op. cit., p. 46)
The first owner of the present painting was Dr. Albert C. Barnes whose legendary art shopping trip to Paris in the 1920s was regarded as a remarkable event by the artistic community and most particularly by Soutine.
The most important stroke of fortune in his life was the
acquisition of his pictures by Dr. Albert C. Barnes of
Philadelphia, in the winter of 1922-23. Michel George-
Michel relates how Zborowski and various friends and
fellow artists were alerted by Paul Guillaume to assemble
a showing of virtually the entire production of the
young artist, and Dr. Barnes bought a great many.
Although Soutine was not enriched by this, or not for
long, it made him something of a celebrity in art circles
in Paris. Guillaume quotes him as expressing his astonishment: "It's incredible! All sorts of people want
to lend me money." (Ibid, p. 56)
He painted several canvases of more or less the same
vaseful, and the point of his fascination and research
in them all seems to have been the play of thick but
sinuous stems and flaring red blossoms. It may not
have been so much the true forms of the leaves and
petals which appealed to him as the blood-redness, fire-redness, which he rendered like little licking
flames. (exh. cat., Soutine, 1950, op. cit., p. 46)
The first owner of the present painting was Dr. Albert C. Barnes whose legendary art shopping trip to Paris in the 1920s was regarded as a remarkable event by the artistic community and most particularly by Soutine.
The most important stroke of fortune in his life was the
acquisition of his pictures by Dr. Albert C. Barnes of
Philadelphia, in the winter of 1922-23. Michel George-
Michel relates how Zborowski and various friends and
fellow artists were alerted by Paul Guillaume to assemble
a showing of virtually the entire production of the
young artist, and Dr. Barnes bought a great many.
Although Soutine was not enriched by this, or not for
long, it made him something of a celebrity in art circles
in Paris. Guillaume quotes him as expressing his astonishment: "It's incredible! All sorts of people want
to lend me money." (Ibid, p. 56)