Walter Bondy

By descent through the family of the artist

Probably, Düsseldorf, Gallery Friedrich, Ahlers-Hesterman, circa 1910-1911

E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, Paris, 1999, vol. 2, p. 514 
Andreas Doepfner, “Im Kunstmarkt Verliet sich die Spur der Bilder," Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, January 5, 2003, p. 49, illustrated

This painting has been lined. On the top and left edge, minor losses due to frame abrasion are visible, as are fine and isolated areas of craquelure. While the painting appears to be clean and bright overall, there are small specks and accretions on the surface. Under UV, three broadly brushed vertical lines of restoration fluoresce, spread evenly across the canvas and stretching from top to bottom. Other areas of brushed inpainting include the cushion on the floor, the sitter's foot, leg and face, around the perimeter of painting, and in other isolated dots scattered across the painting.
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Walter Bondy moved to Paris with his friend Rudolf Levy in 1903 and, together with Hans Purrman, were the first of the so-called Dômiers, the circle of artistic and literary greats who met regularly at the legendary Café du Dome (fig. 1). The café, along with 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, as well as other literary and visual artists such as Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Moïse Kisling and Gertrude Stein. Over the next decade, Bondy became an active member of the Paris art scene, exhibiting in the pre-war Salon des Indépendents and the Salon d’Automne.

Painted in 1907, La Pedicure is an intimate portrait of the artist’s wife to be, Cécile Houdy. A visit to the Salon d’Automne of 1905 had made a lasting impression on Bondy and fellow Dômiers as they, like the rest of the world, were introduced to boldly colored art works by André Derain, Kees van Dongen and Maurice de Vlaminck among others, who were henceforth labeled as the Fauves. Henri Matisse contributed two now-famous paintings of his wife to this exhibition, Woman with the Green Stripe and Woman with the Hat; and their influence is evident in La Pedicure. As Kenneth Silver writes, “before 1910 the influence of Matisse was far and away the strongest of that of any living master on the Dômiers.”(Kenneth Silver and Romy Golan, Jewish Artists in Paris, the Circle in Montparnasse, 1905-1945, New York, 1985, p. 16).  In the present work, the subtly reflected green light on his wife’s skin is reminiscent of Matisse’s own explorations with color, while the statuesque modeling of his subject recalls works from Picasso’s Rose Period. Cécile’s warm and somewhat vacant expression meets the presumed gaze of the artist, and confronts the viewer in manner that is frank and direct.

When La Pedicure was painted, Bondy was poised on the brink of a great career. He moved to Berlin in 1913 to work with his cousin, Paul Cassirer, an influential art dealer who played an important role in promoting the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, notably Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, and was a central figure in organizing the Berlin Secession. Because of growing anti-Semitism, Bondy left Germany and relocated approximately 300 of his paintings from Berlin to Vienna in 1934. These painting have been considered lost ever since, although a few examples, such as La Pedicure, have survived by descent through the artist’s family.