Lot 3238 - A181 Impressionist & Modern Art - Friday, 30. June 2017, 02.00 PM
JEAN DUFY
(Le Havre 1888–1964 Boussay)
Vue de Paris.
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower left: Jean Dufy.
38 x 46 cm.
The authenticity of the work has been confirmed by Jacques Bailly, Paris, 20 April 2017.
Provenance: Private collection, Switzerland.
The work of Jean, the 11-month-younger brother of Raoul, has meanwhile been unjustly somewhat forgotten in Europe, but in North America it has always been valued and also regarded as independent. In 2011 the Musée Marmottan dedicated an exhibition to the work of both, bearing the subtitle "complicité et ruptre", collaboration and break. After the famous older brother had always supported and accompanied the younger one, and they had often worked together, the relationship came to a breaking point following the work "la fée electricité" commissioned by the Parisian power plants for the Exposition Universelle in 1937: Raoul had requested help from Jean, which he received, yet failed to mention when he presented the work to the media. The exhibition at the Musée Marmottan beautifully demonstrated that Jean's work by no means stands in the shadow of his brother. It is easy to recognise how the two mutually influenced each other. They devoted themselves to the same themes before and after the break in their relationship and employed the same formal language, without it necessarily having been Jean who copied Raoul. The latter was indeed earlier active as a painter and already a Fauvist at the beginning. However, the Dufy-typical style of loose indications of form and free areas of colour began at almost the same time, and when one looks at the paintings of both from particular dates next to each other, it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. The finer, almost form-dissolving stroke seems to be the handwriting of Jean Dufy, which is also seen in this attractive view of Paris. Such city views are among the best and most popular subjects of Jean Dufy.
Typical for Dufy are the colours, which are independent of the object and lend the work an additional structure. Thus the tones flow from red to green to the blue of the sky, in which the top level of the city with the hill of Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur are already rendered in blue so that the effective transition also takes place in a mixing of colours.
CHF 30 000 / 50 000 | (€ 30 930 / 51 550)
Sold for CHF 80 900 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.