Walter Bondy

Collection of the artist's family
Thence by descent to the present owner

Berlin Secession, 1907, no. 24
New York, The Jewish Museum, The circle of Montparnasse, Jewish Artists in Paris 1905-1945, 1985
Vienna, Jüdischen Museum der Stadt Wien, Moderne auf der flucht, Österreichische KunstlerInnen in Frankreich 1938-1945 (Les Modernes s'enfuient, Des artistes autrichiens en France 1938-1945), June 4 - September 7, 2008

Kenneth Silver and Romy Golan, "Jewish Artists in Paris, 1905-1945", The circle of Montparnasse, Jewish Artists in Paris 1905-1945, exh. cat., New York, 1985, p.13
Annette Gautherie-Kampka, La colonie allemande de Montparnasse dans les années 1903-1914, 1995, page 162
Nadine Nieszawer, Marie Boyé, Paul Fogel, Peintres Juifs à Paris,  Paris, 2000, illustrated p. 77 Tano Bojankin, Andrea Winklbauer (editor), "Kabel, Kupfer, Kunst. Walter Bondy und sein familiäres Umfeld", Moderne auf der flucht. Österreichische KünstlerInnen in Frankreich 1938-1945, exh. cat., Jüdischen Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna, 2008, p. 9. 30-49, illustrated p. 30

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is in lovely condition. The canvas is unlined and has never been removed from its original stretcher, on which it remains well stretched. The paint layer is quite dirty with a grey dirt layer. The spontaneity of the paint in the sky and elsewhere is still very evident and fresh. There are a few cracks in the sky that are perhaps a little too evident and these could receive some retouching. The remainder of the picture is in very healthy condition. The painting should be cleaned, probably reframed and possibly retouched in a few spots in the sky. However, the work is in beautiful state.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

In 1907, when The "Pavillon Bleu" at St.-Cloud was painted, Walter Bondy was poised on the brink of a great career. He came from an Austrian Jewish industrialist family; born in Prague to Otto Bondy and Julie Cassirer (sister of the Neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer), he was raised in Vienna and pursued an education at Berlin's Academy of Fine Arts. In 1902, he moved to Munich where he met Jules Pascin at the Academy Holosi and they developed a close friendship. 

Bondy moved to Paris with his friend Rudolf Levy in 1903, and they were the first of the so-called Dômiers, the circle of artistic and literary greats who regularly met at the legendary Café du Dôme. The café, as well as the neighborhood of Montparnasse (which represented a move away from the avant-garde of Montmartre), became a creative hub among the many foreigners who were flocking to Paris at that time. Bondy found his community among the German-speaking and Jewish artists of the area, including Jules Pascin who arrived on the Orient Express in 1905; other literary and visual artists who moved to this area included Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Moïse Kisling and Gertrude Stein. Over the next decade, Bondy was an active member of the Paris art scene, exhibiting in the pre-war Salon des Indépendents and the Salon d'Autumne.

The "Pavillon Bleu" at St.-Cloud, a post-impressionist rendering of the terrace at the Pavillon Bleu hotel, is certainly the most ambitious and important painting of his early career. Albert Marquet had painted the same subject two years earlier (see: Sotheby's, New York,  Impressionist and Modern Day Sale, May 6, 2010, lot 138, illustrated). Bondy's painting was exhibited in the Berlin Secession of 1907, an association of Berlin-based artists formed in 1898 as an alternative to the conservative state-run Association of Berlin Artists. 

Bondy's cousin, Paul Cassirer, was a central figure in organizing the Berlin Secession, acting as its business manager since its foundation. Cassirer was also an influential German art dealer who played an important role in promoting the French Impressionists and post-Impressionists, notably Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne, and exerted massive influence towards an embrace of modernism within monarchist Germany. In 1913, Bondy moved to Berlin and worked closely with Paul, as well as another cousin, Bruno Cassirer, who ran a small publishing firm. Bondy eventually developed a magazine of his own, Die Kunstauktion, in 1927. 
 
Because of growing anti-Semitism in Germany, Bondy prepared to relocate and moved approximately 300 of his paintings from Berlin to Vienna in 1934. After the Anschluss these paintings were handed over to his sister's care and have been considered lost ever since. Fortunately, The "Pavillon Bleu" at St.-Cloud has survived in the collection of his descended family. As Europe was engulfed in war he retreated to Sanary sur Mer, a small fishing village in the south of France where members of the Jewish intellectual community took refuge, including Moïse Kisling , Thomas Mann, and Aldous Huxley among others. Far from the centers of the art world, the promise of his youth remained unfulfilled. 

We would like to thank Dr. Kenneth Silver for his help cataloguing the present work.