Albert Marquet

Marcelle Marquet, France
Jean-Claude Martinet, France (by descent from the above)
Galerie Hopkins Custot, Paris
Acquired from the above in 2005 by the present owner

Very little is known about Marquet’s early life, however much can be inferred from this portrait of his mother, painted eight years after he moved to Paris to study at the École des arts decoratifs. Far from a sentimental rendering, the distant composition implies a cold upbringing. The sitter’s impassive expression is hard to read, yet there is a palpable poignancy in her gaze. Marquet was clearly fascinated with his mother as subject and would return to her many times throughout his career. The strong Fauvist hues are characteristic of Marquet’s early works and hearken to the artist’s close friendship with Henri Matisse and the influence of peers such as André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Raoul Dufy. However, Marquet worked in a style uniquely his own, “preferring his own intuition, and developing a style which owed something to the compositions of Fauvism and the sensatory researches of Impressionism, but which was really and truly his own. Cubism and abstract art seem to have totally passed him by” (David F. Setford, From Fauvism to Impressionism: Albert Marquet (exhibition catalogue), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2001-02, p. 6)