Kees van Dongen

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Paris
Kunsthandel d' Audretsch, The Hague (1938)
Sale: Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 3rd June 1954, lot 79
Galerie Paul Pétridès, Paris (1954)
Private Collection, Switzerland
Sale: Maître Marc-Arthur Kohn, Paris, 27th October 1999, lot 1

Paris, 21e Salon des Artistes Indépendants, 1905
Paul Cassirer, Berlin, Kees van Dongen, 1919, no. 3
Hamburg, Galerie Commeter, Kees van Dongen, 1919
Dusseldorf, Galerie Adolphe Flechtheim, Kees van Dongen. Frauen, 1919, no. 4
Kunsthandel Walrecht, The Hague, Kees van Dongen, 1920
Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, E. V., 48 Sonderausstellung Meisterwerke, Deutscher Kunst aus Hanoverischen Privatbesitz; Kees van Dongen, H. F. Bieling, Gerlwh, 1922, no. 36
Genootschap Kunsliefde, Kunstzalen Nobelstraat, Utrecht, Werken van Kees van Dongen, 1938, no. 16
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Van Dongen, œuvres de 1890 à 1948, 1949, no. 27 (titled Le carrousel. Place Pigalle and as dating from 1901)
Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne & Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Van Dongen, 1967-68, no. 14, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Van Dongen. Le Peintre, 1877-1968, 1990, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts & New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, Pleasures of Paris: Daumier to Picasso, 1991, no. 26, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Rotterdam, Boymans van Beuningen Museum; Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts & Paris, Institut Néerlandais, The Van Dongen Nobody Knows, Early and Fauvist Drawings 1895-1912, 1996-97, no. 104, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Louis Chaumeil, Van Dongen, l’homme et l’artiste, la vie et l’œuvre, Geneva, 1967, pl. II, illustrated in colour
Jean Melas Kyriazi, Van Dongen et le fauvisme, Paris, 1971, pl. 25, illustrated in colour p. 69 (as dating from 1904)

This painting emerges from a pivotal point in Van Dongen’s career. Submitted to the 1905 Salon des Indépendants, the first exhibition of the Fauves, Un carrousel shows the first signs of Van Dongen’s true avant-garde spirit and his movement towards Fauvism. It is particularly during this time that the artist began to display his passion for bright and vivid colours and the use of bold brushstrokes, a passion that would remain with him throughout his artistic career.

Aptly choosing to depict a spinning carrousel, Van Dongen here provides the scene with great movement, vibrant energy and light. Instead of paying attention to detail and figurative form, he aims to capture the animated movement and bright light of the spectacle. Primarily made up of short, rough and energetic brushstrokes and thick dabs of paint that are applied directly to the canvas from the tube, this heavy impasto gives the canvas a very attractive texture and accentuates its vibrancy.  The dynamism and vigour of the carrousel are heightened by placing the crowd of onlookers at the bottom part of the canvas, depicting them as a dark mass, in strong contrast with the lively scene before them. ‘Everyone makes landscapes, but it takes guts and willpower to make something from twirling light emanating from those tremendous electric balls of white light… in daring to represent that Bacchanal of light and life, bold and violent as the whole thing is, the personality of the artist comes most powerfully to the foreground’ (The Van Dongen Nobody Knows (exhibition catalogue), Rotterdam, 1996, p.210).