Lot 14
  • 14

Gino Severini

Estimate
1,000,000 - 1,500,000 USD
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Description

  • Gino Severini
  • La Terrasse d'un cafĂ© de Montmartre
  • Signed G. Severini (lower right); signed Gino Severini and inscribed Le déjeuner à la terrasse on the reverse
  • Oil on canvas
  • 18 1/4 by 21 5/8 in.
  • 46.3 by 55.3 cm

Provenance

Kunsthandel Huinck & Scherjon, Amsterdam

Mrs. Van Blaaderen-Hoogendijk, Amsterdam

Acquired by the present owner's family prior to 1939

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie 23, Peintres Futuristes Italiens, 1929-30, no. 9

Venice, XVII Biennale Internationale d'Arte, 1930, no. 98

Paris, Galerie Jacques Bonjean, Gino Severini - Exposition retrospective, 1931, no. 3

Amsterdam, Kunsthandel Huinck & Scherjon, Gino Severini - Exposition retrospective, 1931, no. 8

Haarlem-De Hallen, Moderne Italiaane Kunst uit Nederlands particulier en museaal bezit, 1969, no. 170

Literature

Lionello Venturi, Gino Severini, Rome, 1961, no. 22

Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini.  Catalogo ragionato, Milan, 1988, no. 148, illustrated p. 151

Condition

Original canvas. Under UV light, there is one small spot of retouching at the right framing edge, towards the top. Very good 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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

La Terrasse d'un café de Montmartre is an exceptionally vibrant and rare example of Severini’s Futurist work. The painting shows a man sitting outside a Montmartre café, enveloped by the multi-sensory stimuli of the modern city. The Bergsonian integration of space and time was of central importance to Futurism: an idea being simultaneously explored by the Cubists, but to more dizzying effect by the Futurists. Whereas the Cubists mostly limited themselves to the still life genre, the Futurists burst out onto the streets, the railways, and the battlefield. In fact it was not just the choice of subject that distinguished the Cubist and Futurists. Severini describes the distinction between the two ‘inclinations’, as he calls them, very clearly in a letter to Marinetti in April 1913: "Cubism: reaction to Impressionism, objectivism, analysis, stasis. Futurism: continuation of Impressionism; simultaneity plastic states of mind; synthesis; dynamism in the sense of duration and displacement."

These words, written in the same year this work was painted, help us to understand the artist’s complex and nuanced intentions.  Although Futurist painting may often be associated with images of war, and of hurtling trains packed full of ammunition, the group was just as much concerned with the pulse of the modern urbanized city. Here, Severini does not merely celebrate the obvious dynamism of a train or a car, but the more intangible dynamism and buzz of Montmartre. Ordinarily stable elements are catapulted into action, and imbued with the city’s vitality. Forms are flattened and piled on top of each other to create a looming atmosphere where the background is given just as much importance as the foreground.