Albert Gleizes

Ambroise Vollard
Private Collection, Paris
Germaine Henry, Paris (by 1964)
Barry Friedman Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Switzerland

New York, Galerie Rene Gimpel, A Retrospective Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Albert Gleizes, 1936-7, no. 21
Aix-en-Provence, Galerie Lucien Blanc,  Rétrospective Albert Gleizes, 1954, no. 18
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, A Retrospective Exhibition, 1964, no. 130, illustrated in the catalogue

Anne Varichon & Henri Giriat, Albert Gleizes Catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Paris, 1998, no. 1309, illustrated p. 422 (catalogued with incorrect dimensions)

Work is in good condition. Canvas is not lined. Surface is clean with thin web of craquelure mostly located at upper right quadrant. Under UV light: numerous strokes of inpainting around gray shape at upper center. A few dots of inpainting in green shape at upper right, in purple shape at upper left and in gray area at lower left. Scattered strokes around perimeter to address prior frame abrasion.
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Completed in 1923, Paysage Méridional is an iconic example of how Gleizes evolved from naturalism to abstraction under the influence of the Parisian avant-garde, taking his mode of pictorial representation beyond the Cubism of Picasso and Braque by incorporating a strong color palette. The juxtaposition of vivid colors was a common feature in Gleizes' style and is here demonstrated to magnificent effect. Gleizes' early work of the 1920s concentrates on the strict relationship between forms and color. Indeed, the present painting is articulated by the dynamic juxtaposition of vibrant, rigorously controlled color areas and the delicately delineated contours of the buildings captured in the view.   

As a co-founder of the Salon d'Automne and member of the Salon des Indépendants, Gleizes was heavily influenced by Henri Le Fauconnier, Jean Metzinger and other members of the Cubist circle. Soon discovering his own pictorial language, Gleizes sought to deconstruct the objects which appear in his canvases, reorganizing them in rhythmically shifting planes. By 1911, he was among the outstanding Cubist exhibitors in the Salon des Indépendants and co-author with Jean Metzinger of the treatise Du Cubisme. This was the first publication to offer a definition of Cubism and the ideas set forth therein were an inspiration to many of Gleizes' contemporaries, including Roger de Fresnaye and Fernand Léger.