Louis Valtat's vibrant, expressive seascapes and street scenes reside in the highly-charged space between Impressionism, with its lyrical evocation of shifting light and atmosphere, and Fauvism, with its ferocity of color and gestural exuberance. Louis Valtat was born on August 8, 1869 in Dieppe, France, into a wealthy family involved with the shipping industry. Encouraged by his father, an amateur landscape painter, the young Valtat studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and later the Barbizon School, where his peers included Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard. Valtat established a studio in Paris in 1890 and debuted at the Salon three years later with street scenes that employed the painterly vocabulary of Impressionism and Pointillism. In 1894, he collaborated with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the décor for the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, where Alfred Jarry's proto-Dada play Ubu Roi would soon premiere. At the turn of the century, Valtat made several visits to Auguste Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer, with whom he collaborated on a sculpture of Paul Cézanne. His hues and brushstrokes became bolder as he spent more time admiring the sun-soaked splendor of the Mediterranean coast, although he did not fully adopt the strident saturation and planar figuration that characterized the work of Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck and the other Fauves with whom he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1906. Valtat continued to paint until 1948, when his glaucoma left him nearly blind. He died on January 2, 1952 in Paris. Valtat's work can be found in the permanent collections of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the Musuem of Modern Art in New York and the Museo Thyssen in Madrid, among many other major world institutions.

Louis Valtat

Modern Discoveries

Property from a Private Collection, Florida

Property from a Private Collection, Florida Louis Valtat 1869 - 1952 Nature morte, pastèques et physallis signed L. Valtat (lower right) oil on board 9 ½ by 22 ¼ in. 23.5 by 56.5 cm. Executed in 1920.

View 1 of Lot 2119: Nature morte, pastèques et physallis

nature morte, pastèques et physallis

Property from a Private Collection, North Carolina

Property from a Private Collection, North Carolina Louis Valtat 1869 - 1952 Barques sur le lac du Bois de Boulogne stamped with the initials L.V (lower right) oil on canvas 10 ½ by 13 ¾ in. 26.7 by 34.9 cm. Executed in 1933.

View 1 of Lot 2118: Barques sur le lac du Bois de Boulogne

barques sur le lac du bois de boulogne

Property from a Private Collection, North Carolina Louis Valtat 1869 - 1952 La Couture stamped with the initials L.V (lower right) oil on canvas 14 by 11 in. 35.6 by 27.9 cm. Executed in 1929.

la couture

Property of a Gentleman Louis Valtat 1869 - 1952 Le Bois de Boulogne signed L. Valtat (lower right) oil on canvas laid down on board 10 ¾ by 13 ¾ in. 27.3 by 34.9 cm. The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the late Louis-André Valtat.

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