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Lot Essay
The twenty-one-year-old painter Delauney executed the present innovative, polychromatic portrait of his close friend and fellow modernist, Jean Metzinger, in 1906. In this frontal, bust-length rendering, Metzinger is dressed in a formal suit and a bright white collared shirt. He seems to make direct eye contact with the viewer, but also appears to stare beyond us, like a Byzantine icon. The portrait is comprised of thick, staccato tiles of color that, as Delaunay's contemporary critics pointed out, resemble a mosaic comprised of glass or stone tesserae. The artist's face is comprised of dabs of leafy and lime green, with touches of lilac around his eyelids and cheekbones. His royal blue suit is checkered with emerald, purple and ruby red, and the background is animated by abstract geometric shapes and swirls—which anticipate Delaunay's stylistic evolution towards non-objective abstraction in the second decade of the twentieth century.
Delaunay exhibited a different version of Portrait de Jean Metzinger (Christie's, New York, 9 May 2007, lot 33), along with a portrait of Henri Carlier (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), at the fourth iteration of the Société du Salon d'Automne, which was staged at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1906. Delaunay had first submitted his work to the Salon d'Automne in 1904, just a year after he began painting professionally. The 1906 exhibition featured more than 1800 works by hundreds of artists—including Paul Cezanne. The massive group show had a reputation as a platform for the most radical, provocative art works: the year prior, for example, Henri Matisse had exhibited his Femme au chapeau (1905, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), which gave rise to the term "Fauvism" when art critic Louis Vauxcelles labeled Matisse and his cohorts as fauves, or wild beasts, because of their explosive use of color.
For Delaunay, this was a fertile period of creative encounters with several other ambitious, innovative young artists, including Jean Metzinger, the subject of the present painting. Both radicalized by Matisse's ecstatic coloristic vision, Delaunay and Metzinger often painted in a shared studio together. Delaunay and Metzinger were also profoundly influenced by Divisionist color theory, also known as Chromoluminarism, which advocated for the blunt juxtaposition of complementary colors in order to animate the surface of a painting. Both artists experimented with this style; see, for example, Metzinger's reciprocal portrait of Delaunay in the present sale, which was also exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1906 and was listed in the exhibition catalogue as belonging to Delaunay. In 1907, one year after exhibiting their reciprocal portraits at the Salon d'Automne, the two artists shared an exhibition at the gallery of the art dealer Berthe Weill, after which the critic Vauxcelles described them both as "Divisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions" (quoted in V. Carl, Robert Delaunay, Newark, 2019). Delaunay also executed at least one other portrait of his friend in 1906, entitled L'homme à la tulipe (Portrait de Jean Metzinger); sold, Christie's, New York, 9 May 2007, lot 33). Another, unfinished oil on paper study for the present work belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Portrait de Jean Metzinger remained in Delaunay's possession until 1922, after which it was purchased by Félix Aublet, a Parisian artist and designer who trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and is best known for his furniture designs of the 1920s and 1930s. Aublet kept Delaunay's painting of Metzinger in his collection for more than forty years. The painting was acquired by the present owner in January 1972.
Delaunay exhibited a different version of Portrait de Jean Metzinger (Christie's, New York, 9 May 2007, lot 33), along with a portrait of Henri Carlier (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), at the fourth iteration of the Société du Salon d'Automne, which was staged at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1906. Delaunay had first submitted his work to the Salon d'Automne in 1904, just a year after he began painting professionally. The 1906 exhibition featured more than 1800 works by hundreds of artists—including Paul Cezanne. The massive group show had a reputation as a platform for the most radical, provocative art works: the year prior, for example, Henri Matisse had exhibited his Femme au chapeau (1905, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), which gave rise to the term "Fauvism" when art critic Louis Vauxcelles labeled Matisse and his cohorts as fauves, or wild beasts, because of their explosive use of color.
For Delaunay, this was a fertile period of creative encounters with several other ambitious, innovative young artists, including Jean Metzinger, the subject of the present painting. Both radicalized by Matisse's ecstatic coloristic vision, Delaunay and Metzinger often painted in a shared studio together. Delaunay and Metzinger were also profoundly influenced by Divisionist color theory, also known as Chromoluminarism, which advocated for the blunt juxtaposition of complementary colors in order to animate the surface of a painting. Both artists experimented with this style; see, for example, Metzinger's reciprocal portrait of Delaunay in the present sale, which was also exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1906 and was listed in the exhibition catalogue as belonging to Delaunay. In 1907, one year after exhibiting their reciprocal portraits at the Salon d'Automne, the two artists shared an exhibition at the gallery of the art dealer Berthe Weill, after which the critic Vauxcelles described them both as "Divisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions" (quoted in V. Carl, Robert Delaunay, Newark, 2019). Delaunay also executed at least one other portrait of his friend in 1906, entitled L'homme à la tulipe (Portrait de Jean Metzinger); sold, Christie's, New York, 9 May 2007, lot 33). Another, unfinished oil on paper study for the present work belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Portrait de Jean Metzinger remained in Delaunay's possession until 1922, after which it was purchased by Félix Aublet, a Parisian artist and designer who trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and is best known for his furniture designs of the 1920s and 1930s. Aublet kept Delaunay's painting of Metzinger in his collection for more than forty years. The painting was acquired by the present owner in January 1972.