Émile Bernard

Ambroise Vollard, Paris (acquired directly from the artist)
Mme Clément Altarriba, Paris (acquired before 1966)
Galerie René Drouet, Paris
Private Collection, France
Private Collection, United States
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1987)
Sale : Christie's, London, 27th June 2000, lot 184
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Kyoto, Musée Municipal & Tokyo, National Museum, Exhibition of French Art in Japan
1840-1940, 1961-62, no. 151
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Emile Bernard, 1963, no. 4
London, Tate Gallery, Gauguin and the Pont-Aven Group, 1966, no. 91
Bremen, Kunsthalle, Emile Bernard, 1967, no. 34
Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Emile Bernard, 1967, no. 36
Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle & Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Emile Bernard 1868-1941, 1990, no. 17
Paris, Fondation Mona Bismark, Emile Bernard 1868-1941 Retrospective, 1991, no. 30
Aosta, Saint-Benin Centre, Archeological Museum of Valle d’Aosta, Gauguin et ses amis
peintres de Bretagne, Pont-Aven et le Pouldu, 1993, n.n.
Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven, Kenavo Monsieur Gauguin, 2003, no. 11
Naples, Museo de Castel Sant’Elmo, Gauguin e la Bretagna, 2003-04, n.n.

Jean-Jacques Luthi, Emile Bernard, Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, Paris, 1982, no. 340, illustrated p. 53
Béatrice Altarriba Recchi, Emile Bernard : 1868-1941 (catalogue d'exposition), Nîmes, 1993, illustrated pl. 31, p. 67
Antoine Terrasse, Pont-Aven. L'École buissonnière, Paris, 1993, illustrated on the frontispice and p. 113

The card and panel are sound. Examination under UV light reveals a significant network of retouching particularly apparent in the upper part of the composition, with patches that fluoresce in the sky, the hills and the houses; with smaller areas on the pink road and running towards the lower edge. This work remains in stable condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Pont-Aven was a place of experimentation for Emile Bernard. From his first trip there, in summer 1886, when he briefly met Gauguin, the Breton village became for he and his painter friends a bustling site of exchanges and discoveries. At the end of the 19^thCentury, Pont-Aven remained relatively remote and difficult to access and had a population of only 1600 inhabitants. In this “authentic” Brittany, not yet transformed by modernity, a region distinct from the rest of France by its language, its traditional customs and dress, young painters of the Parisian avant-garde could live on very little and together, far from the capital, find a new visual vocabulary.

It was in Pont-Aven that Bernard and his compatriots set forth on a quest to find a new aesthetic approach. 1888 was a climactic year: Bernard painted Madeleine au Bois d’Amour, Les Bretonnes dans la prairie verte, later acquired by Maurice Denis, and completed a self-portrait that he dedicated to Van Gogh. Gauguin, twenty years his senior, painted one of his masterpieces, La Vison après le sermon, and also undertook his own self-portrait dedicated to Vincent, who was at the time living in Arles. Other painters come to Pont-Aven and contributed to the movement. Among them were Charles Laval, Henri Moret, Émile Schuffenecker and Paul Sérusier, who, in October, painted his celebrated Talisman, a founding icon of the Nabis movement.

La Rue rose à Pont-Aven is the product of Emile Bernard’s final sojourn to Brittany in summer 1892. It is the sum of years of exchanges and artistic activity. During the same trip, he painted Bretonnes aux Ombrelles, now in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, which shows his absolute mastery of Cloisonnism, the movement he founded with Louis Anquetin and Paul Gauguin, and Synthetism, that he developed with Paul Sérusier. The painter had clearly moved away from Impressionism and Pointillism, in order to seek an aesthetic purity of line, colour and form, fused with emotion. In La Rue rose à Pont-Aven, Bernard goes further still: he integrates the constructivist touch and simplified forms of Cézanne. Moreover, the previous year he had written an article in praise of Cézanne whom he had admired since 1886.

La Rue rose à Pont-Aven also incorporates lessons learnt from Van Gogh, whom Bernard had met in 1887, in the midst of his Pointillist period, and with whom he had corresponded at length. It was in April 1892, before his final journey to Brittany, that Bernard organises the first retrospective exhibition of 16 canvases by the Arles master at the Galerie Le Barc de Boutteville. The work of Van Gogh, like that of Cézanne, is ever present in Emile Bernard’s oeuvre, like a burning undercurrent. Since 1888, Van Gogh and he had written to each other regarding aesthetic matters and the famous letters Van Gogh sent him were often illustrated with sketches of paintings, such as Les Mas à Saintes-Maries in 1888. Stylistically, La Rue rose à Pont-Aven makes reference to Van Gogh’s exploration of colour and Bernard had been greatly affected by the Dutch painter’s death, two years earlier.

La Rue rose à Pont-Aven represents a fond farewell to Pont-Aven, to this artistic laboratory where Emile Bernard reached the peak of his experimentation with form. It is the final visual testament to his Breton period before his departure for the East where he would seek new sources of inspiration. It is also a work that paves the way for a certain modernity, notably that expounded by Edvard Munch, the Cubists and other avant-garde artists who would take the reins and continue to search for new means of expression.