Maurice de Vlaminck

Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris (acquired directly from the artist circa 1910)
M. Didier-Lambert, Paris (acquired from the above in 1957)
Private Collection, France (by descent from the above, sale: Christie’s, London, 9th May 2000, lot 203)
Irving Galleries, Palm Beach, Florida (acquired in February 2003)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

The canvas is not lined and UV examination reveals no evidence of retouching. There is a 4cm-long diagonal indentation with an associated surface scratch to the right end of the barge, which could be easily improved. Otherwise, this work is in overall very good condition. Colours: greens are more prominent in the original when compared to the printed catalogue illustration.
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Much in the same way that the 1901 exhibition of Van Gogh’s work ushered in Vlaminck’s Fauvist style, so the 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d’Automne heralded a new direction in his œuvre. The dark, predominantly blue palette of the present work, interrupted by blocks of white - defined through solidly structured brushstrokes and black contours - identifies Le Pont de Chatou à La Voile Blanche as a prime example of Cézanne’s profound influence upon Vlaminck’s production from 1907. The flashy, attention-grabbing colours of Fauvism satisfied Vlaminck for a limited time period only, much as the fluidity of Impressionism quickly lost its appeal for Cézanne. Indeed this painting demonstrates how the artist skilfully amalgamated and mastered stylistic developments from the various strands of early French Modernism, resulting in a style that was very much his own.

In 1892, at the age of sixteen, Vlaminck had moved to Chatou, a suburb to the northwest of Paris, and eight years later made the chance acquaintance of André Derain when the two walked back to Chatou together after their train was derailed leaving Paris. The two agreed to meet the next day with their canvasses beneath the very bridge that appears in the present work. The island in the Seine at Chatou, depicted here on the right, is known as the île des Impressionnistes for its marked popularity with many great artists of the time, Renoir included. This railway bridge must have held a particular significance for Vlaminck as the starting point for his friendship with Derain, and the ground-breaking Fauve aesthetic that they subsequently defined together. In his deliberate and continual return to this subject, a manner reminiscent of Monet and the Impressionists, Vlaminck reveals himself as conservative in his fidelity to nature, despite having previously said that he wanted ‘to burn down the École des Beaux-Arts’ and ‘to express my feelings without troubling what painting was like before me’ (John Elderfield, The Wild Beasts: Fauvism and its Affinities, New York, 1976, p. 71). Le Pont de Chatou à La Voile Blanche demonstrates Vlaminck’s appreciation for those masters of Modernism that had come before him and is a wonderfully evocative example of the artist’s much-celebrated creative energy and nuanced sensitivity to the natural world around him.