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Lot Essay
In 1912 Jean Metzinger appeared to most observers to be the leader of the new Cubist movement. He showed his paintings in all of the large exhibitions where the public went to view new art, including the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne, as well as the exhibitions of the Section d'Or. Together with his colleague Albert Gleizes he wrote Du Cubisme, published at the end of 1912, which was the most comprehensive and coherent survey to date of the theories and aims of the new movement. He penned numerous articles, some of which were being translated and published abroad.
Apollinaire, in reviewing the 1910 Salon d'Automne, wrote that Metzinger "is here the only one adept at Cubism proper" (quoted in D. Robbins, "Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism", in Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, exh. cat. The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, p. 16).
Metzinger and Gleizes developed many of their ideas about the new painting from the weekly discussions held in the home of Jacques Villon in the Paris suburb of Puteaux, where they were joined by Villon's brothers Marcel Duchamp and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Robert de la Fresnaye (see lots 101, 103, and 110), Juan Gris, Fernand Léger and the Russian sculptor Alexander Archipenko. Mathematics and geometry were frequent subjects, and when these artists decided to organize as a group in order to exhibit together, Villon suggested the name La Section d'Or (The Golden Section), taken from the theorems of the mathematical proportion of the human figure in the writings of Pythagoras and Leonardo da Vinci. The first Section d'Or exhibition took place at the Galerie la Boëtie in October 1912 and included 180 works by 31 artists. According to Madame Bozena-Nikiel, the pendant for the present work (now housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was included in this landmark exhibition.
Femme au chapeau clearly demonstrates Metzinger's own contribution to the pluralism of this halcyon year of Cubism.
Apollinaire, in reviewing the 1910 Salon d'Automne, wrote that Metzinger "is here the only one adept at Cubism proper" (quoted in D. Robbins, "Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism", in Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, exh. cat. The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, p. 16). His emphasis is on the concept of multiple points of view, an idea referred to as "simultaneity", which was foreign to the work of Picasso and Braque. The face of the sitter shows overlapping frontal and profile. It was a function of sequential observation and hence of time; the fourth dimension had been introduced into painting. Metzinger's interest in mathematical proportion and compositional balance may be observed in the essential classic pyramidal structure that does not emerge from the analysis of the sitter's forms, but is instead imposed upon it. In this concern for balance, and in his fondness for treating the various details in the background and introducing varying degrees of illusionism in depicting the textures of the sitter's clothing, Metzinger was probably responding to the influence of Gris.
In a letter dated 4 May 1939, Léonce Rosenberg wrote to René Gaffé:
...Puisque vous voulez parler de 'précurseur', permettez-moi de déclarer que, parmi les amateurs, vous avez, vous aussi, fait acte de précurseur à un moment où il y avait, sous tous les rapports, mérite à le faire. Vous avez ainsi indissolublement attaché votre nom à l'histoire du cubisme, le plus important mouvement d'art des temps modernes, car il a été l'annonciateur d'une renaissance spirituelle de l'humanité. La peinture 'La Femme au chapeau' par Metzinger que vous possédez n'est jamais sorti[e] de ma mémoire. C'est une oeuvre très heureuse que j'aimerais moi-même posséder éventuellement.
...Since you would like to tell me about 'precursing', allow me to declare that, among amateurs, you were also precursing at a time when there was in all respects, merit in doing so. In that way, you have inseparably linked your name to the history of cubism, the most important art movement of modern times, since it heralded a spiritual renaissance of mankind. The painting La Femme au chapeau by Metzinger that you own stayed engraved in my memory. It is a very joyful work that I would ultimately love to own myself.
In a letter dated 21 September 1953, James Johnson Sweeney of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, discussed the Museum's interest in acquiring the present work for the permanent collection. Similarly, in a letter dated 27 July 1955, Sidney Janis expressed an interest in purchasing the present painting from René Gaffé.
Apollinaire, in reviewing the 1910 Salon d'Automne, wrote that Metzinger "is here the only one adept at Cubism proper" (quoted in D. Robbins, "Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism", in Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, exh. cat. The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, p. 16).
Metzinger and Gleizes developed many of their ideas about the new painting from the weekly discussions held in the home of Jacques Villon in the Paris suburb of Puteaux, where they were joined by Villon's brothers Marcel Duchamp and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Robert de la Fresnaye (see lots 101, 103, and 110), Juan Gris, Fernand Léger and the Russian sculptor Alexander Archipenko. Mathematics and geometry were frequent subjects, and when these artists decided to organize as a group in order to exhibit together, Villon suggested the name La Section d'Or (The Golden Section), taken from the theorems of the mathematical proportion of the human figure in the writings of Pythagoras and Leonardo da Vinci. The first Section d'Or exhibition took place at the Galerie la Boëtie in October 1912 and included 180 works by 31 artists. According to Madame Bozena-Nikiel, the pendant for the present work (now housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was included in this landmark exhibition.
Femme au chapeau clearly demonstrates Metzinger's own contribution to the pluralism of this halcyon year of Cubism.
Apollinaire, in reviewing the 1910 Salon d'Automne, wrote that Metzinger "is here the only one adept at Cubism proper" (quoted in D. Robbins, "Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism", in Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, exh. cat. The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, p. 16). His emphasis is on the concept of multiple points of view, an idea referred to as "simultaneity", which was foreign to the work of Picasso and Braque. The face of the sitter shows overlapping frontal and profile. It was a function of sequential observation and hence of time; the fourth dimension had been introduced into painting. Metzinger's interest in mathematical proportion and compositional balance may be observed in the essential classic pyramidal structure that does not emerge from the analysis of the sitter's forms, but is instead imposed upon it. In this concern for balance, and in his fondness for treating the various details in the background and introducing varying degrees of illusionism in depicting the textures of the sitter's clothing, Metzinger was probably responding to the influence of Gris.
In a letter dated 4 May 1939, Léonce Rosenberg wrote to René Gaffé:
...Puisque vous voulez parler de 'précurseur', permettez-moi de déclarer que, parmi les amateurs, vous avez, vous aussi, fait acte de précurseur à un moment où il y avait, sous tous les rapports, mérite à le faire. Vous avez ainsi indissolublement attaché votre nom à l'histoire du cubisme, le plus important mouvement d'art des temps modernes, car il a été l'annonciateur d'une renaissance spirituelle de l'humanité. La peinture 'La Femme au chapeau' par Metzinger que vous possédez n'est jamais sorti[e] de ma mémoire. C'est une oeuvre très heureuse que j'aimerais moi-même posséder éventuellement.
...Since you would like to tell me about 'precursing', allow me to declare that, among amateurs, you were also precursing at a time when there was in all respects, merit in doing so. In that way, you have inseparably linked your name to the history of cubism, the most important art movement of modern times, since it heralded a spiritual renaissance of mankind. The painting La Femme au chapeau by Metzinger that you own stayed engraved in my memory. It is a very joyful work that I would ultimately love to own myself.
In a letter dated 21 September 1953, James Johnson Sweeney of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, discussed the Museum's interest in acquiring the present work for the permanent collection. Similarly, in a letter dated 27 July 1955, Sidney Janis expressed an interest in purchasing the present painting from René Gaffé.