拍品專文
Between December 1905 and February 1907 Van Dongen lived with his wife Augusta and their daughter Dolly in the famed Bateau-Lavoir at 13 rue Ravignan, Paris. This ramshackle collection of wooden studios in Montmartre housed the most avant-garde group of artists of the time, including Pablo Picasso and his mistress Fernande Olivier, with whom the Van Dongens soon became friendly.
Danseuse et Clown was most likely inspired by the celebrated Cirque Medrano, for which Picasso and Van Dongen were great enthusiasts, regularly visiting it together. "Van Dongen fréquentait déjà occasionnellement le Cirque Medrano. Mais, quand il se lia d'amitié avec Picasso, il devint comme lui un assidu de ce cirque. Roland Dorgelès se rappelle très bien que Picasso et Van Dongen allaient au Cirque Medrano chaque semaine en tous cas et parfois même plusieurs fois per semaine" (J. M. Kyriazi, Van Dongen et le Fauvisme, Lausanne, 1971, p. 82).
The Cirque Medrano had originally been established under the name Cirque Fernando as a travelling circus, settling on waste ground at the top of the rue des Martyrs in 1873. Originally a basic wood and tarpaulin structure, its proprietor the bareback rider Ferdinand Beert, alias Fernando, opened a permanent structure in June 1875. Its success was based on a varied programme, a major feature of which was the clown Medrano. After a temporary closure in 1897, the circus was taken over by Medrano, who gave it his name and whose family ran it until 1943. As the Cirque de Montmartre it finally closed in 1963.
The circus, and often the Cirque Medrano itself, had long been a source of inspiration for artists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec (see lot 8), Degas, Renoir and Seurat. As for Van Dongen and Picasso "les deux peintres étaient fascinés par la féerie du cirque. Van Dongen avait toujours avec lui son carnet de croquis et il fixait les traits des acrobates, des clowns, des équilibristes, des écuyères sur les chevaux, enfin de tout ce monde hallucinant, qu'il reproduisait le lendemain sur les toiles dans son atelier...En 1906, nous voyons apparaître de la violence. Sa palette s'éclairçit, ses couleurs deviennent vibrantes et l'harmonie des contrastes confère une puissance audacieuse à ses oeuvres. Nous voyons dans son oeuvre de cette époque que son sujet de prédilection est déjà la femme et nous retrouvons surtout des danseuses, des acrobates et des équilibristes, mais il accorde aussi une place importante aux clowns et aux chevaux" (J. M. Kyriazi, op. cit., pp. 84 and 86, see also fig. 1).
As Jean Kyriazi comments "Les plus belles scènes de cirque de Van Dongen sont incontestablement celles qu'il exécuta quand il habitait le Bateau Lavoir. Van Dongen a vraiment épuisé le sujet et le cirque joue un grand rôle dans son oeuvre de cette époque, car il a réussi à retransmettre sur ses toiles l'ambiance nécessaire qui crée l'atmosphere de l'endroit. Il est parvenu à créer cette atmosphère en donnant toujours une image où domine chaque fois l'individualité de ces êtres de cirque et en attachant une grande importance à l'équilibre des lignes des ces corps en mouvement" (ibid., p. 86).
Van Dongen's début in the Paris art world had been marked in 1904 by his participation in three exhibitions; the Salon des Indépendants in February 1904 to which he sent six canvases, the Salon d'Automne where he was represented by two works and the large exhibition at Ambroise Vollard's gallery with over a hundred of his works on view. Most significantly, however, two nudes painted by Van Dongen were hung in the infamous Room VII at the 1905 Salon d'Automne, which opened on 18 October. His works hung alongside those by artists such as Derain, Matisse, Marquet and Vlaminck. The power of their brilliant colours prompted Louis Vauxcelles to call them 'les fauves' in an article in Gil Blas of 17 October 1905.
By 1904 Van Dongen had already been in contact with Derain and Vlaminck, two of the principal exponents of Fauvism, and although it is not certain whether Van Dongen was one of its founders "Van Dongen was the one Fauve, who of all the group best deserves the name, for he remained a Fauve all his life. In his art, his use of vivid colours was not conditioned solely by a desire to stress concordances or clashes; it also seemed to demonstrate the power of colour itself, treated as a constructive element" (exh. cat., Van Dongen, Arizona, 1971, p. 12).
Danseuse et Clown belongs to a powerful group of Fauve paintings of Parisian entertainers painted by Van Dongen between 1906 and 1910. Other significant works include Danseuse Rouge of 1907 (fig. 4), in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Les Danseuses - Revel et Coco of circa 1906 (fig. 2) and Modjesko, Soprano Singer of 1908 in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (fig. 3). Like artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec before him, Van Dongen found the cafés, dancehalls and theatres of Paris a vivid source of inspiration, choosing to paint the excitement and movement of the scenes he witnessed using undiluted pigments whilst exploiting innovative compositional structures.
Danseuse et Clown formerly belonged to André Simon, presumably the close friend and business associate of the art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, one of the earliest patrons of Fauvism. On the outbreak of World War One, the French state sequestered the German Kahnweiler's art collection, which was eventually sold in a series of sales held at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris in 1921. As Kahnweiler was disqualified by law from making any purchases under his own name, Simon was amongst the friends who bid on his behalf under the fictious name of Grassat. Moreover, Simon agreed to open his partner's new gallery at 29 rue d'Astorg under his own French name to protect Kahnweiler from any further prejudice. The gallery bore Simon's name until it was sold to Louise Leiris in 1945.
To be included in the forthcoming Kees van Dongen catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute (ref. 9606014744443).
Danseuse et Clown was most likely inspired by the celebrated Cirque Medrano, for which Picasso and Van Dongen were great enthusiasts, regularly visiting it together. "Van Dongen fréquentait déjà occasionnellement le Cirque Medrano. Mais, quand il se lia d'amitié avec Picasso, il devint comme lui un assidu de ce cirque. Roland Dorgelès se rappelle très bien que Picasso et Van Dongen allaient au Cirque Medrano chaque semaine en tous cas et parfois même plusieurs fois per semaine" (J. M. Kyriazi, Van Dongen et le Fauvisme, Lausanne, 1971, p. 82).
The Cirque Medrano had originally been established under the name Cirque Fernando as a travelling circus, settling on waste ground at the top of the rue des Martyrs in 1873. Originally a basic wood and tarpaulin structure, its proprietor the bareback rider Ferdinand Beert, alias Fernando, opened a permanent structure in June 1875. Its success was based on a varied programme, a major feature of which was the clown Medrano. After a temporary closure in 1897, the circus was taken over by Medrano, who gave it his name and whose family ran it until 1943. As the Cirque de Montmartre it finally closed in 1963.
The circus, and often the Cirque Medrano itself, had long been a source of inspiration for artists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec (see lot 8), Degas, Renoir and Seurat. As for Van Dongen and Picasso "les deux peintres étaient fascinés par la féerie du cirque. Van Dongen avait toujours avec lui son carnet de croquis et il fixait les traits des acrobates, des clowns, des équilibristes, des écuyères sur les chevaux, enfin de tout ce monde hallucinant, qu'il reproduisait le lendemain sur les toiles dans son atelier...En 1906, nous voyons apparaître de la violence. Sa palette s'éclairçit, ses couleurs deviennent vibrantes et l'harmonie des contrastes confère une puissance audacieuse à ses oeuvres. Nous voyons dans son oeuvre de cette époque que son sujet de prédilection est déjà la femme et nous retrouvons surtout des danseuses, des acrobates et des équilibristes, mais il accorde aussi une place importante aux clowns et aux chevaux" (J. M. Kyriazi, op. cit., pp. 84 and 86, see also fig. 1).
As Jean Kyriazi comments "Les plus belles scènes de cirque de Van Dongen sont incontestablement celles qu'il exécuta quand il habitait le Bateau Lavoir. Van Dongen a vraiment épuisé le sujet et le cirque joue un grand rôle dans son oeuvre de cette époque, car il a réussi à retransmettre sur ses toiles l'ambiance nécessaire qui crée l'atmosphere de l'endroit. Il est parvenu à créer cette atmosphère en donnant toujours une image où domine chaque fois l'individualité de ces êtres de cirque et en attachant une grande importance à l'équilibre des lignes des ces corps en mouvement" (ibid., p. 86).
Van Dongen's début in the Paris art world had been marked in 1904 by his participation in three exhibitions; the Salon des Indépendants in February 1904 to which he sent six canvases, the Salon d'Automne where he was represented by two works and the large exhibition at Ambroise Vollard's gallery with over a hundred of his works on view. Most significantly, however, two nudes painted by Van Dongen were hung in the infamous Room VII at the 1905 Salon d'Automne, which opened on 18 October. His works hung alongside those by artists such as Derain, Matisse, Marquet and Vlaminck. The power of their brilliant colours prompted Louis Vauxcelles to call them 'les fauves' in an article in Gil Blas of 17 October 1905.
By 1904 Van Dongen had already been in contact with Derain and Vlaminck, two of the principal exponents of Fauvism, and although it is not certain whether Van Dongen was one of its founders "Van Dongen was the one Fauve, who of all the group best deserves the name, for he remained a Fauve all his life. In his art, his use of vivid colours was not conditioned solely by a desire to stress concordances or clashes; it also seemed to demonstrate the power of colour itself, treated as a constructive element" (exh. cat., Van Dongen, Arizona, 1971, p. 12).
Danseuse et Clown belongs to a powerful group of Fauve paintings of Parisian entertainers painted by Van Dongen between 1906 and 1910. Other significant works include Danseuse Rouge of 1907 (fig. 4), in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Les Danseuses - Revel et Coco of circa 1906 (fig. 2) and Modjesko, Soprano Singer of 1908 in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (fig. 3). Like artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec before him, Van Dongen found the cafés, dancehalls and theatres of Paris a vivid source of inspiration, choosing to paint the excitement and movement of the scenes he witnessed using undiluted pigments whilst exploiting innovative compositional structures.
Danseuse et Clown formerly belonged to André Simon, presumably the close friend and business associate of the art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, one of the earliest patrons of Fauvism. On the outbreak of World War One, the French state sequestered the German Kahnweiler's art collection, which was eventually sold in a series of sales held at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris in 1921. As Kahnweiler was disqualified by law from making any purchases under his own name, Simon was amongst the friends who bid on his behalf under the fictious name of Grassat. Moreover, Simon agreed to open his partner's new gallery at 29 rue d'Astorg under his own French name to protect Kahnweiler from any further prejudice. The gallery bore Simon's name until it was sold to Louise Leiris in 1945.
To be included in the forthcoming Kees van Dongen catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute (ref. 9606014744443).