Henri Charles Manguin

Ambroise Vollard, Paris (acquired from the artist in March 1906)
Private Collection, Paris
Private Collection, Europe (by descent from the above)
Acquired in New York by the present owner

Aix-en-Provence, Galerie L. Blanc, Manguin, 1961, no. 9, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Galerie de Paris, Les amis de Saint-Tropez, 1962, no. 38
Paris, Galerie de Paris, Manguin, Tableaux Fauves, 1962, no. 18, illustrated in the catalogue
Marseille, Musée Cantini, Gustave Moreau et ses élèves, 1962, no. 39
Neuchâtel, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Manguin, 1964, no. 38, illustrated in the catalogue
Cagnes, Château-Musée, Manguin, 1965, no. 16, illustrated in the catalogue
Tokyo, Takashimaya, Les Fauves, 1965, no. 38, illustrated in the catalogue
London, Arthur Tooth, Henri Manguin, 1966, no. 25
Nice, Palais de la Méditerrannée, Henri Manguin, plus de cent cinquante œuvres, 1969, no. 69, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Galerie de Paris, Centenaire Henri Manguin, 1976, no. 17

Pierre Cabanne, Henri Manguin, Neuchâtel, 1964, no. 62, illustrated p. 100, (titled as la petite maison de Signac)
Marie Caroline Sainsaulieu, Henri Manguin, Catalogue raisonné, Neuchatel, 1980, no. 114, illustrated p. 74

The canvas is not lined and there do not appear to be any signs of retouching visible under UV light. A close inspection reveals evidence of very minor frame rubbing along the extreme right edge, barely visible when framed. The pigments are fresh and vibrant and the surface is richly textured, the impasto is well-preserved. This work is in overall very good condition.
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Widely exhibited and dating from his very first painting sojourn in the South of France, La Maison de Signac, ‘Les Cigales’, Saint-Tropez is a rare and important example of early Fauvism, one of the 20^th century’s most short-lived but most well-loved artistic movements. Though the painting has often previously been dated as from the summer of 1905, this dating has been dismissed by Marie Caroline Sainsaulieu (author of the Catalogue raisonné on the artist), who maintains that it is one of only ten paintings that he painted in his first Saint-Tropez stay in the Autumn of 1904. The South of France in this period (Saint-Tropez in 1904 and nearby Collioure in 1905) is credited with being the crucible of Fauvism;  indeed the dazzling effect of the hot sun on the local landscape, framed by the gnarly olive grove branches is among the most familiar and celebrated Fauve subjects, as evidenced by the near identical compositions from the period by Matisse and Derain (fig 1 & 2). Behind the branches of this particular scene is Paul Signac’s house, where Manguin and his wife were staying during this time. In fact it was Signac who had also been responsible for Matisse’s first visit to Saint-Tropez just a few months earlier, when he had offered him the use of his old house ‘La Ramode’. Signac obviously relished the opportunity to nurture this exciting new generation of artists, and admired Matisse and Manguin for their daring use of colour. As Sarah Whitfield has remarked: ‘At forty-one years old , he was a powerful figure in contemporary art […] by all accounts a man of generous impulse, unaffected self-confidence and dominating stature, Signac took pleasure in playing the role of teacher and leader’ (Sarah Whitfield, Fauvism, London, 1991, p. 43). Of course Signac’s hospitality and artistic encouragement in the South of France was not the only link that bound Matisse and Manguin, as they had long been close friends from when they joined Gustave Moreau’s class at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1895. Even if it took the bright Mediterranean sun to bring Fauvism to its most marvellous final expression - and the 1905 Salon d’Automne to give the movement its name ‘the wild beasts’ and immediate notoriety -  it was the four artists from Moreau’s class (Matisse, Manguin, Marquet and Camoin) ‘who were to form the nucleus of the Fauve group’ (ibid.,p. 11).

Though it is hard to imagine now, when Fauve works were  first shown in the 1905 Salon d'Automne in Paris, they created a real scandal and eyewitness accounts tell of laughter emanating from room VII where they were displayed. Gertrude Stein revealed the extent of the shock in her reports that people had even scratched at the canvases in scorn. ‘A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public’ was the reaction by the critic Camille Mauclair. Louis Vauxcelles described the work with the now legendary phrase ‘Donatello au milieu des fauves!’ (Donatello among the wild beasts), referring to a Renaissance-style sculpture that shared the room with them. His comment was printed in the 17th October 1905 edition of the daily newspaper Gil Blas, and the term was very quickly absorbed into widespread usage. Fauvism took the spontaneous ‘en plein air’ painting approach, first employed by the Impressionists, to a much bolder level: the brushwork became more gestural, more spirited, and surfaces were striking for their rich impasto and pure vibrant colour. What seemed to shock the 1905 museum-going public the most though, was what they perceived to be the unfinished nature of these works, clearly not understanding that this was a quite deliberate move on the part of the artists to allow their colour to sing even more vividly. As Sarah Whitfield has argued, with Fauve paintings, ‘the unpainted areas of canvas give off as much light as the strokes of colour; they are spaces which radiate the energy of colour while remaining colourless’ (ibid., p. 69).

Legendary dealer and great early supporter of Fauvism, Ambroise Vollard, was greatly impressed by Manguin’s interpretation of this ground-breaking and uplifting new style of painting. Vollard cemented his admiration for Manguin’s work when in March 1906 he acquired more than ninety of the artist’s paintings at once, which at the time constituted the vast majority of the artist’s entire œuvre: it is hard to imagine a bolder statement of confidence in an artist’s work. The present work was amongst those works acquired by Vollard in March 1906 and survives as an exquisite embodiment of the most celebrated Fauve techniques, its vibrant palette of unadultered pure colour still dazzling more than a hundred  years after it was painted.