Félix Vallotton

Estate of the artist
Jacques Rodrigues-Henriques, Paris (the artist's stepson)

Berlin, Paul Cassirer, VII. Ausstellung Frühjahr, 1905, no. 61
Geneva, Galerie Moos, Exposition d'art français, 1918, no. 298 (titled Le Quai de Dieppe)
Paris, Maison de la Pensée Française, Félix Vallotton, 1955, no. 20, illustrated in the catalogue (titled Le retour de la pêche (Dieppe))
Winterthur, Kunstmuseum; Bremen, Kunsthalle; Dusseldorf, Kunsthalle; Paris, Musée du Petit Palais & Geneva, Musée Rath, Félix Vallotton, 1978-79, no. 64, illustrated in the catalogue (titled Retour de pêche, Dieppe)
Brighton, Museum and Art Gallery, Rendez-vous à Dieppe. The Town and its Artists from Turner to Braque, 1992, no. 85, illustrated in the catalogue

Félix Vallotton, Livre de raison (The Artist's Handlist), no. 508, as one of '17 paysages faits à Arques-la-bataille'
Hans Rosenhagen, 'Von Ausstellungen und Sammlungen', in Die Kunst für Alle, no. 18, Munich, 15th June 1905, p. 437
Rudolf Koella, Das Bild der Landschaft im Schaffen von Félix Vallotton. Wesen, Bedeutung, Entwicklung (PhD thesis), Zurich, 1969, pp. 166
Rudolf Koella, 'Le Retour au paysage historique. Zur Entstehung und Bedeutung von Vallottons später Landschaftsmalerei', in Beiträge zur Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Zurich, 1970, fig. 1, pp. 33
Günter Busch et al., Félix Vallotton. Leben und Werk, Frauenfeld, 1982, illustrated in colour p. 159
Ashley Saint James, Félix Vallotton. The Nabi Years (PhD thesis), London, 1982, pp. 156, 295, no. 62
Günter Busch et al., Vallotton, Lausanne, 1985, illustrated in colour pl. 91
Anne-Françoise Ponthus, La Postérité du nabisme dans l'œuvre peint de Félix Vallotton, Paris, 1992, p. 41, no. 21
Dominique Brachlianoff, 'Vallotton romancier et peintre ou la juste distance', in Le Très singulier Vallotton (exhibition catalogue), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon & Musée Cantini, Marseille, 2001, discussed p. 62
Marina Ducrey, Félix Vallotton, l'œuvre peint, Lausanne, 2005, vol. II, no. 474, illustrated in colour p. 292

The turn of the 20th century marked important changes in Vallotton's art as well as his personal life. With the slow disbanding of the Nabis group in 1900 and his marriage a year earlier to Gabrielle Rodrigues Henriques, a daughter of the Bernheim family, the artist enjoyed his new bourgeois lifestyle. In 1901, he embarked upon a series of Paris landscapes (fig. 1), turning his attention to outdoor subjects rather than the intimate Nabis interior scenes. He spent the summer of 1903 in Arques-la-Bataille, near the coast at Dieppe, where he continued to focus on landscape painting, developing his own individual neo-realistic style. Typical of Vallotton's visual vocabulary, Arrivée de bateaux, Dieppe reveals his skill at creating an illusion of depth through the use of strong diagonal planes. The configuration of fishermen leaning over the bridge to look at the boats is captured as if by a camera recording the instant. Absorbed in their discussions, or leaning over as far as possible to see the boats, they are unaware of the watchful gaze of the artist. Vallotton has added vivid colours to their clothes in striking contrast to the bright midday sun which bathes the buildings around the port of Dieppe in a virtually monochromatic light.

 

While Arrivée de bateaux, Dieppe forms part of this new series of landscapes, Marina Ducrey suggests that the present work stylistically displays many of the characteristics of Nabis painting (op. cit., vol. I, p. 175), perhaps through the pattern and detail portrayed in the men’s clothing. Nonetheless, Arrivee de bateaux, Dieppe is a strikingly modern composition and one that could easily have influenced the next generation of artists including Edward Hopper, who may have seen Vallotton's works in Paris.

Fig. 1, Félix Vallotton, Pêcheurs à la ligne, 1901, oil on canvas, Private Collection