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Lot Essay
Sold with a photo-certificate from the Fondation Émile Chambon.
“... while figurative, the art of Chambon does not merely adhere to tradition. It is the art of a man, a man who had been invited down contemporary paths and who had deliberately renounced the escapes which they allow. He created a dense oeuvre, captivating, that has sometimes been compared to that of Balthus, where the temptations of escaping through abstract were overcome with sovereign control ”. - Anne-Marie Burger
A great admirer of Gustave Courbet, Caravaggio and Felix Vallotton, Swiss artist Emile Chambon remained a figurative painter throughout his life. He always refused to be part of a particular artistic group and developed his own unique aesthetic.
Chambon constructs in his paintings a unique, surreal, universe in his paintings, depicting palpable atmospheres of tension, executed with precision and rigor. There is an apparent dualism in his subjects which are at once silent and dangerous, sinister and sweet, intimate and public, with shadows and inferences revealing unexpected clues in each composition.
Dreams and a surreal sense of voyeurism recur as themes in Chambon’s oeuvre, the latter of which is evidently dominant in the work l’indiscret (lot 19). This work depicts a standing female figure, barely dressed, subject to what appears to be an act of voyeurism. The identity of the voyeur is not revealed, suggested solely by the shadow in the window, which suddenly is revealed to be standing in the position of the viewer of the painting. Thus, the spectator becomes the voyeur in a self-reflexive twist, themselves suddenly incorporated into the work. This scene calls to mind the widely acclaimed Alfred Hitchcock film, Rear Window released two years earlier, with its sense of suspense and disrupted narrative. The tightly constructed painting, light, shadow, flat planes and the dark and rich palette are all carefully chosen by Chambon to communicate the tense atmosphere, an encounter that remains unexplained.
This group of paintings were painted in the 1950s when Emile Chambon’s style reached its maturity and became recognized by the public and having major exhibitions in Switzerland and Paris and come for sale from the same New York collection.
“... while figurative, the art of Chambon does not merely adhere to tradition. It is the art of a man, a man who had been invited down contemporary paths and who had deliberately renounced the escapes which they allow. He created a dense oeuvre, captivating, that has sometimes been compared to that of Balthus, where the temptations of escaping through abstract were overcome with sovereign control ”. - Anne-Marie Burger
A great admirer of Gustave Courbet, Caravaggio and Felix Vallotton, Swiss artist Emile Chambon remained a figurative painter throughout his life. He always refused to be part of a particular artistic group and developed his own unique aesthetic.
Chambon constructs in his paintings a unique, surreal, universe in his paintings, depicting palpable atmospheres of tension, executed with precision and rigor. There is an apparent dualism in his subjects which are at once silent and dangerous, sinister and sweet, intimate and public, with shadows and inferences revealing unexpected clues in each composition.
Dreams and a surreal sense of voyeurism recur as themes in Chambon’s oeuvre, the latter of which is evidently dominant in the work l’indiscret (lot 19). This work depicts a standing female figure, barely dressed, subject to what appears to be an act of voyeurism. The identity of the voyeur is not revealed, suggested solely by the shadow in the window, which suddenly is revealed to be standing in the position of the viewer of the painting. Thus, the spectator becomes the voyeur in a self-reflexive twist, themselves suddenly incorporated into the work. This scene calls to mind the widely acclaimed Alfred Hitchcock film, Rear Window released two years earlier, with its sense of suspense and disrupted narrative. The tightly constructed painting, light, shadow, flat planes and the dark and rich palette are all carefully chosen by Chambon to communicate the tense atmosphere, an encounter that remains unexplained.
This group of paintings were painted in the 1950s when Emile Chambon’s style reached its maturity and became recognized by the public and having major exhibitions in Switzerland and Paris and come for sale from the same New York collection.