Lot 3213* - A209 Impressionist & Modern Art - Friday, 21. June 2024, 05.00 PM
PIERRE BONNARD
(Fontenay-aux-Roses 1867–1947 Le Cannet)
Matin bleu ou Petite rivière. 1927.
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower left: Bonnard.
52.5 × 73.5 cm.
Provenance:
- With Bernheim-Jeune, acquired directly from the artist in 1927.
- With F. Valentine Dudensing Gallery, New York, acquired from the above gallery.
- Collection of Laughlin Phillips, Washington, thence to the descendents.
- Sale Sotheby's, New York, 6.5.2015, Lot 139.
- With Richard Green Gallery, London (label verso).
- Private collection, Spain.
Exhibited:
Northampton/Chicago 1932/33, Entering the Twentieth Century. Oil, watercolors and drawings, Smith College Museum of Art, November–December 1932/Art Institute of Chicago, June–November 1933.
Literature:
Jean und Henry Dauberville: Bonnard. Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Paris 1973, vol. III, 1920–1939, p. 298, no. 1367 (ill.).
Around the time this work was created, Pierre Bonnard moved into his small house "Le Bosquet" at Le Cannet in the south of France, where he was close to his artist friends Matisse (in Nice) and Lebasque (also in Le Cannet), and could maintain artistic and social contact.
The theme of the bustling big city with its busy people was a thing of the past; the artist is now drawn back to nature. His sense of color and light finds new nourishment in the surrounding hills and river landscape.
The painting makes us feel the silence and beauty of a morning by the river, not in the south of France, but in Normandy, on the banks of the Seine near Vernonnet, where Bonnard has also owned a house since 1912.
We do not perceive the shimmering heat of afternoon, but rather the still-muted light and colors of the morning twilight, during the "blue hour", as the title "matin bleu" suggests.
In an impressionistic manner, Bonnard captures the mood of this morning on the banks of the small river. The vibrant green of the bushes and grass in the foreground contrasts beautifully with the various shades of blue in the sky and water.
Color becomes light and vice versa, allowing the viewer to immerse themselves in this idyllic landscape.
«La couleur est la métamorphose de la matière en lumière.» (Jean Leymarie : Bonnard dans sa lumière, Frankreich 1978, p. 13).
The theme of the bustling big city with its busy people was a thing of the past; the artist is now drawn back to nature. His sense of color and light finds new nourishment in the surrounding hills and river landscape.
The painting makes us feel the silence and beauty of a morning by the river, not in the south of France, but in Normandy, on the banks of the Seine near Vernonnet, where Bonnard has also owned a house since 1912.
We do not perceive the shimmering heat of afternoon, but rather the still-muted light and colors of the morning twilight, during the "blue hour", as the title "matin bleu" suggests.
In an impressionistic manner, Bonnard captures the mood of this morning on the banks of the small river. The vibrant green of the bushes and grass in the foreground contrasts beautifully with the various shades of blue in the sky and water.
Color becomes light and vice versa, allowing the viewer to immerse themselves in this idyllic landscape.
«La couleur est la métamorphose de la matière en lumière.» (Jean Leymarie : Bonnard dans sa lumière, Frankreich 1978, p. 13).
CHF 200 000 / 300 000 | (€ 206 190 / 309 280)