Marquet by Richard Green

6th–10th May 2022 Booth 103 Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue New York, NY 10065 Following the fair, these paintings will be on view at 147 New Bond Street, London W1S 2TS

Penny Marks +44 (0)7720 848 586 pennymarks@richardgreen.com

Jonathan Green +44 (0)7768 818 182 jonathangreen@richardgreen.com

Laura Bergues +44 (0)7508 484 003 laurabergues@richardgreen.com

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Paintings are sold subject to our standard terms and conditions of sale, copies of which may be obtained on request and are also available on our website

INTRODUCTION

‘Marquet se sentait chez lui partout où il y avait de l’eau et des bateaux.’ MARCELLE MARQUET

Albert Marquet was fascinated throughout his career by the effect of light on water, whether the greyish light on the rivers of northern France or the magical Mediterranean light of Provence. His friend André Rouveyre commented: ‘Marquet reigns over the kingdom of light. The light that shines on the things of this world, of course, but also that which belongs to his pictures alone: a strangely regal quality that comes from his sensitivity and wisdom’. Marquet lived on the banks of the Seine most of his life and became celebrated for his sensitive observation of Paris and its river. An inveterate traveller, visiting England, the USSR and North Africa, among other places, Marquet continued to draw his inspiration from the rivers, ports and coastline of his native France, evoking the individual light and changing terrain with a serene economy of composition and a sensitive use of colour and tone. As a young man in the studio of Gustave Moreau, Marquet forged friendships with Camoin, Rouault, Manguin and Matisse, artists who burst upon the Salon d’Automne in 1905 with vibrant colours and bold brushwork, leading a critic to dub them ‘Fauves’ (Wild Beasts). Marquet was closely associated with this group in the early years of the twentieth century and its legacy can be seen in the coloursaturated landscapes that follow. By 1935, Marquet had forged a highly individual manner influenced by aspects of Impressionism, the work of Cézanne and the graceful economy of Japanese landscape painting. Like most successful French artists, his career depended upon a base in the capital: he had a studio on the banks of the Seine. As with most French people, however, Marquet had a ‘native place’ of family memories. Boudin, for example, was professionally obliged to live in Paris part of the year, but his heart – and his art – lay with the Normandy coast. Living his first fifteen years in Bordeaux, Marquet spent childhood holidays in the Bassin d’Arcachon and grew to love the coastal landscape of his mother’s family; his luminous representations both a return to happy childhood memories and a view to their escape.

Cover (detail): Albert Marquet Porquerolles, après-midi d’été Inside cover (detail): Albert Marquet Moulin à Villennes Opposite: Charles Camoin (1879–1965), Portrait d’Albert Marquet, 1904, Musée Fabre, Montpelier. Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMNGrand Palais. Image Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI © ADAGP, Paris. All rights reserved, DACS, London 2022

ALBERT MARQUET Bordeaux 1875 – 1947 Paris

Moulin à Villennes Signed lower right: marquet Oil on canvas board: 10 ½ × 13 ¾ in / 26.7 × 34.9 cm Frame size: 18 ¼ × 21 ¼ in / 46.4 × 54 cm In a Louis XIV antique carved and gilded frame Painted in 1910 PROVENANCE:

Private collector, France, acquired in the 1930s; by descent to his grandchild To be included in the forthcoming Digital Catalogue Raisonné of the work of Albert Marquet currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., ref. 20.02.14/20674 Albert Marquet lived in an apartment on the Seine in Paris and often explored the meanderings of the river, the defining waterway of northern France. This painting of 1910 depicts Villennes-sur-Seine, thirty-six kilometres west of the capital. Villennes became a popular leisure spot for prosperous Parisians after the advent of the railway in 1844 and the building of the station in 1880. The Seine offered the delights of pleasure boating, fishing and swimming; the village and Ile de Villennes became dotted with elaborate holiday villas. The water mill provided a picturesque subject for Marquet, just as the mills of Moret-sur-Loing had done for Alfred Sisley (1839–1899). In 1910 Marquet rented the Villa des Cytises on the Ile de Villennes and painted en plein air with his friend Henri Manguin, one of the group of ‘Fauves’ who had so shocked Paris in 1905 with their employment of vibrant hues and bold brushwork. This Fauvist legacy is apparent in the radical simplification of Marquet’s Moulin à Villennes, with elements firmly outlined in blue-grey. Marquet’s subtle sense of colour is however unique to him. The use of moss- and blue-green in the blocks of foliage and the salmon-pink of the mill’s roof are signature hues. 4

The painting also reflects Marquet’s interest in Japonisme. Matisse later compared the refinement of Marquet’s landscapes to the prints of Katsushika Hokusai (1760– 1849), with their blocks of colour and air of monumental calm. Moulin à Villennes is classically balanced. The bridge divides the composition exactly in two; the reflection of the mill on the right is balanced by the tree reflection on the left. Marquet’s manipulation of tone – the intense light on the bridge and the sun-warmed stucco of the mill, set against lush foliage – perfectly evokes a summer day in northern France.

ALBERT MARQUET Bordeaux 1875 – 1947 Paris

Bassin d’Arcachon, Le Pyla Signed lower right: marquet; titled and dated on the reverse Oil on panel: 12 7/8 × 16 1/8 in / 32.7 × 41 cm Frame size: 18 ½ × 21 5/8 in / 47 × 54.9 cm In a Louis XV pastel style carved and gilded frame Painted in 1935 PROVENANCE:

The artist; by inheritance to his wife Marcelle Marquet, Paris, 14th June 1947; Galerie Katia Granoff, Paris, circa 1948, by exchange with the above (as Bassin d’Arcachon); private collection, France, acquired from the above, circa December 1948 (as Jardin, Arcachon); by descent in a private collection, France To be included in the forthcoming Digital Catalogue Raisonné of the work of Albert Marquet currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., ref. 20.12.15/20779

This view had a deep personal resonance for Marquet as it depicts the coastline of the Baie d’Arcachon, 55km south-west of Bordeaux, where he was born into a family of modest means. He spent summers with his mother’s family on the Bassin d’Arcachon, looking after the cows and living as a peasant. One early painting of Pins au Pyla, made in 1895, he treasured all his life. Marquet spent two months in the summer of 1935 at the Villa Robinson in Pyla-sur-Mer. Marquet’s wife Marcelle recalled the house among the pines, with wooden steps that led down to the beach. ‘Des bateaux à voile circulaient là du matin au soir sur une eau le plus souvent calme. A marée basse, une plus grande étendue de sable blond nous en séparait, mais si lumineux qu’il semblait fait pour mettre en valeur les jeux auxquels, pour notre enchantement, elle s’abandonnait’.1 In Bassin d’Arcachon, Le Pyla the dark green of the pines is a foil for the luminous bay, painted in a soft eau-denil flecked with rhythmic waves. Marquet is a master of understatement, distilling the essence of the scene. A single yacht floats at the centre of the painting. The vertical lattice of the pine trunks is held in tension by the picket fence, the green line of the horizon and Cap Ferret to the right. Inspired by the tranquillity of Pyla, Marquet produced thirty works during this stay, including the Jardin au Pyla in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux.

‘Sailing boats circulated there from morning to evening on mostly calm water. At low tide, a larger expanse of blond sand separated us from it, but so luminous that it seemed made to highlight the games to which, for our delight, it abandoned itself.’

ALBERT MARQUET Bordeaux 1875 – 1947 Paris

Pins au Pyla Signed lower left: marquet Oil on canvas laid down on board: 9 ½ × 12 ½ in / 24.1 × 31.8 cm Frame size: 15 × 18 in / 38.1 × 45.7 cm In a Louis XIV style carved and gilded frame Painted in 1935 PROVENANCE:

The artist; from whom acquired on 8th June 1937 by Gösta Olson, Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm (as Pins au Pyla) Herman Lindquist, Gothenburg Crane Kalman Gallery, London; from whom acquired on 30th July 1958 by the Hon. Mrs Hazelrigg, London (as Le bassin d’Arcachon) Christie’s London, 29th November 1995, lot 197, illus. in colour (as Le pin, le Pyla (Arcachon)) Etude Tajan, Hôtel Georges V, Paris, 10th June 1996, lot 40, illus. in colour (as Le bassin d’Arcachon, wrongly dated 1924–25); where acquired by Mr and Mrs Vernes; by descent in a private collection, France EXHIBITED:

London, Crane Kalman Gallery, A Selection of Paintings by Albert Marquet and Jean Puy, June–July 1958, pp.11–12, no.14, illus. (as Le bassin d’Arcachon) LITERATURE:

Natalie Leniachina, ‘Albert Marquet’, Art, Leningrad 1975, no.573, p.211 (as Le bassin d’Arcachon) To be included in the forthcoming Digital Catalogue Raisonné of the work of Albert Marquet currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., ref. 19.10.15/20626

This painting is a fruit of Marquet’s two-month stay at Pyla-sur-Mer in the summer of 1935, a place of happy childhood memories. The golden sand of the Dune du Pyla, 3km long and fringed by pine forest, forms Europe’s largest dune, sheltered by a long spit of land on the other side of the bay. Arcachon, just north of the dune, was a small fishing village until the railway arrived in 1857. It then became a fashionable resort for the haut bourgeoisie of Bordeaux, honoured in 1865 by a visit from the famous novelist Alexandre Dumas père (1802–1870). Marquet employs the sparest of elements: pines silhouetted against the sky, a white picket fence, balanced by the horizontals of the break-waters and the radiant bay. Marquet is particularly subtle in the use of greens and blue-greens which tonally unify this work. He implies human presence, while never crowding his canvases with figures. This is a landscape tamed by man – the break-waters which hold the sand in place and the promenade testify to human intervention – but the overall impression is a celebration of the purity and light of nature.

ALBERT MARQUET Bordeaux 1875 – 1947 Paris

Baigneurs à Carqueiranne Signed lower left: marquet Oil on canvas: 19 ¾ × 24 in / 50.2 × 61 cm Frame size: 27 × 31 ½ in / 68.6 × 80 cm In a Louis XV pastel style carved and gilded frame Painted in 1938 PROVENANCE:

The artist; by inheritance to his wife Marcelle Marquet, Paris; from whom acquired in 1953 by Galerie Marigny, Paris; from whom acquired by Mr and Mrs Pierre F Simon, New York; by descent to Jacqueline Albert Simon, New York EXHIBITED:

New York, Wildenstein & Co. Inc., A Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Hospitality Committee of the United Nations. Albert Marquet, 28th October–4th December 1971, no.47, illus. (lent by Mr and Mrs Pierre F Simon) To be included in the forthcoming Digital Catalogue Raisonné of the work of Albert Marquet currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., ref. 21.04.20/20835

Marquet’s constant theme is the effect of light on water, here the magical Mediterranean light of Provence. The resort of Carqueiranne lies between Toulon and Hyères. Marquet captures the pale turquoise blue of the sea on a hazy day, with sandy cliffs on the far sweep of the bay and the intense white of a yacht pricking the horizon. A delicate tracery of young trees provides a deliciously cool viewpoint. Marquet’s interest in Japanese art is reflected in the elegant restraint and allusiveness of the composition. Unusually for him, the figures are comparatively large and fully realized in their brilliant simplicity. The artist conjures up a perfect mood of summer languor and enjoyment.

ALBERT MARQUET Bordeaux 1875 – 1947 Paris

Porquerolles, après-midi d’été Signed lower left: marquet, titled and dated on the stretcher: Après midi d’été /1939 Oil on canvas: 18 1/8 × 24 in / 46 × 61 cm Frame size: 25 ¼ × 31 ¼ in / 64.1 × 79.4 cm In a Louis XIV style gilded composition frame Painted in 1939 PROVENANCE:

LITERATURE:

Possibly sale, Galerie Motte, Geneva, 2nd–3rd November 1971, lot 435 (as Porquerolles) Galerie du Théâtre, Geneva, 1972 Schröder and Leisewitz, Bremen, 1985 (as Porquerolles) Galerie Beauvau, Paris, by October 1992 Private collection, Germany

Journal de Genève, no.176, 29th–30th July 1972, p.9 and no.203, 30th August 1972, p.13 Weltkunst, vol. 55, no.17, 1st September 1985, p.2283

EXHIBITED:

Possibly Paris, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Albert Marquet. Peintures, aquarelles, dessins, 23rd April–11th May 1940, no.1 (as L’Eté à Porquerolles) Geneva, Galerie du Théâtre, Exposition Marquet, Renoir, Derain, Picasso, Ciry, 29th July–30th August 1972, no.6 (as Porquerolles, dated 1938) Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg, Orangerie ’85 – Deutscher Kunsthandel im Schloss Charlottenburg, 12th–29th September 1985 (on the stand of Schröder and Leisewitz, as Porquerolles) Sète, Musée Paul-Valéry, Albert Marquet (1875–1947). Plages et ports, 1st October–15th December 1992, no.41, illus. in colour (as Porquerolles, dated 1938)

This painting was authenticated in 1982 by FC Martinet, Albert Marquet’s nephew To be included in the forthcoming Digital Catalogue Raisonné of the work of Albert Marquet currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., ref. 19.12.12/20644

In the summer of 1939 Marquet stayed in an elegant villa at Porquerolles with his wife Marcelle and his brotherin-law’s family, the Martinets. Porquerolles is one of the Provençal Iles d’Hyères, situated south-east of Toulon. Marquet’s painting shows the village of Porquerolles, with the church and wooded slopes crowned by Fort Saint Agathe. The village was built around 1820 for the families of the military stationed there; situated at the approach to Toulon, one of France’s most important naval bases, the island had strategic significance. The pale yellow stone of Fort Saint Agathe reflects the afternoon sun. Sixteenth century in origin, it was renovated under Cardinal Richelieu, Napoleon III and the Third Republic. Marquet evokes the colour-saturated Mediterranean landscape on a hot afternoon. The sea is a pristine aquamarine, given context and pictorial depth by the even-more-vivid blue of the central boat. Marquet ‘draws’ with economy in paint, suggesting the shape of the boat, its mast and rigging with a minimum of bold strokes, contrasting the blue with a few lines of lipstick-red. The composition is underpinned by a geometric precision, a balance of horizontal and vertical lines, shoreline and jetty against masts and church tower. As with most of Marquet’s paintings, humanity is implied but largely absent. The only person here is a small child, gazing upon the water from the jetty.

ALBERT MARQUET Bordeaux 1875 – 1947 Paris

Mer agitée à Collioure Signed lower left: marquet Oil on panel: 13 × 16 ¼ in / 33 × 41.3 cm Frame size: 18 ¾ × 21 ¾ in / 47.6 × 55.2 cm In a Louis XV pastel style carved and gilded frame Painted in 1940 PROVENANCE:

R Petel, by 1954 Galerie des Granges, Geneva; from whom acquired by a private collector, Lausanne; by descent in a private collection, Switzerland EXHIBITED:

Toulouse, Musée des Augustins, Albert Marquet, 19th June–18th July 1954, no.39 (as Collioure, lent by R Petel) To be included in the forthcoming Digital Catalogue Raisonné of the work of Albert Marquet currently being prepared by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc., ref. 20.04.20/20834 Marquet depicts the view towards Collioure’s harbour wall with the medieval lighthouse and the church of NôtreDame-des-Anges behind. A Catalan town fifteen miles from the French-Spanish border, Collioure had a crucial place in the history of French art. Paul Signac stayed in the town in 1887; Picasso, Dufy and Chagall were all attracted to Collioure. Derain and Matisse painted ground-breaking Fauve works there in 1905, using bold, anti-naturalistic colours, flat planes and simplified compositions. Marquet associated with the Fauves as a young man and was a lifelong friend of Matisse; his later work, although more subtle in colouring, retains the bold compositions and vibrancy first explored in his Fauve period. For centuries Collioure was of strategic importance, squabbled over by the kingdoms of Aragon, Majorca, Spain and France, to which it was finally ceded in 1659.

The Royal Castle, built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the Kings of Majorca, was reinforced to its present outline by Philip II of Spain in the sixteenth century. By the nineteenth century Collioure was a modest fishing port and a centre for anchovy salting and canning; its unspoiled beauty attracted increasing numbers of visitors as the twentieth century progressed. Marquet stayed at the Hôtel de la Balette in Collioure from the end of August 1940, before leaving for Algeria at the end of September. His wife, Marcelle, wrote to Malek and Albert André on the 2nd September: ‘Here we are in Collioure, where Marquet returns for each catastrophe, he was here in 1914, he is here now and he is painting.’1

A André - G Besson Archives, cited in Michèle Paret, From Fauvism to Impressionism: Albert Marquet. An Exhibition from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, 2001, p.99.

ALBERT MARQUET Bordeaux 1875 – 1947 Paris Albert Marquet was born in Bordeaux in 1875, the son of a railway employee. He went to Paris to study at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs at the age of fifteen. Six years later he joined the studio of Gustave Moreau, where he met and forged lasting friendships with Camoin, Rouault, Manguin and Matisse. During this period Marquet began to use the vibrant colours and bold brushwork that is characteristic of the Fauves with whom he was closely associated. He exhibited at Berthe Weill and the Galerie Druet, Paris from 1902 and from 1903 at the Salon d’Automne. After 1907 Marquet’s interest in Japonisme resulted in more sober works. He travelled extensively, frequently leaving his apartment on the banks of the Seine to visit England, Germany, Italy, the USSR, Scandinavia and North Africa, where he spent the years of the Second World War. He met his wife Marcelle Martinet, whom he married in 1923, on his first stay in Algiers in 1920. The most profound influence on his work is that of the Impressionists, and also Paul Cézanne. Like the Impressionists his favourite subjects were port scenes, beaches, quaysides, river views and coastal villages; he was particularly fascinated by the effect of light on water. André Rouveyre, a fellow student in Gustave Moreau’s atelier, wrote: ‘Marquet reigns over the kingdom of light. The light that shines on the things of this world, of course, but also that which belongs to his pictures alone: a strangely regal quality that comes from his sensitivity and wisdom. Skies, hills, houses, streets all bathe in his subtle but intense lights’. The work of Albert Marquet is represented in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Rochelle; the Musée de Grenoble; the Hermitage, St Petersburg; Tate, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

L O C AT I O N S O F PA I N T I N G S I N T H E C ATA L O G U E

Oise river Seine river

Villennes-sur-Seine

Paris Seine river Yonne river

FRANCE

Bordeaux

Pyla-sur-Mer

Carqueiranne

Porquerolles

Collioure

Map adapted from original illustration by Eric Gaba (Wikimedia Commons user: Sting) under the following license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

24th – 30th June Preview Day: 24th & 25th June

29th June – 6th July 2022 Preview Day: 29th June

12th – 16th October 2022 Preview Day: 12th October

L I S T O F M U S E U M S & N AT I O N A L C O L L E C T I O N S Richard Green has assisted in the formation and development of numerous private and public collections including the following: UNITED KINGDOM Aberdeen: City Art Gallery Altrincham: Dunham Massey (NT) Barnard Castle: Bowes Museum Bedford: Cecil Higgins Museum Canterbury: Royal Museum and Art Gallery Cheltenham: Art Gallery and Museum Chester: The Grosvenor Museum Coventry: City Museum Dedham: Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum Hampshire: County Museums Service Hull: Ferens Art Gallery Ipswich: Borough Council Museums and Galleries Leeds: Leeds City Art Gallery Lincoln: Usher Gallery Liskeard: Thorburn Museum London: Chiswick House (English Heritage) Department of the Environment The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood The Museum of London National Maritime Museum National Portrait Gallery National Postal Museum Tate Britain The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum Lydiard Tregoze: Lydiard House Malmesbury: Athelstan Museum Norwich: Castle Museum Plymouth: City Museum and Art Gallery Richmond: London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and Orleans House Gallery St Helier: States of Jersey (Office) Southsea: Royal Marine Museum Stirling: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum York: York City Art Gallery CANADA Fredericton: Beaverbrook Art Gallery Ottawa: The National Gallery of Canada

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts Cincinnati, OH: Art Museum Dayton, OH: The Dayton Art Institute Gainesville, FL: Harn Museum of Art Houston, TX: Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation Los Angeles, CA: J Paul Getty Museum New Haven, CT: Yale Center for British Art New York, NY: Dahesh Museum Ocala, FL: The Appleton Museum of Art Omaha, NE: Joslyn Art Museum Pasadena, CA: Norton Simon Museum Rochester, NY: Genessee County Museum San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library St Louis, MO: Missouri Historical Society Sharon, MA: Kendall Whaling Museum Toledo, OH: Toledo Museum of Art Ventura County, CA: Maritime Museum Washington, DC: The National Gallery The White House Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Winona, MN: Minnesota Marine Art Museum Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum BELGIUM Antwerp: Maisons Rockox Courtrai: City Art Gallery DENMARK Troense: Maritime Museum

GERMANY Berlin: Staatliche Kunsthalle Darmstadt: Hessisches Landesmuseum Hannover: Niedersachsisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe: Staatliche Kunsthalle Speyer am Rhein: Historisches Museum der Pfalz JAPAN Kanagawa: The Pola Museum of Art, The Pola Art Foundation HOLLAND Amsterdam: Joods Historisch Museum Rijksmuseum Amersfoort: Museum Flehite Utrecht: Centraal Museum SOUTH AFRICA Durban: Art Museum SPAIN Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Sun Fernando Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional del Prado SWITZERLAND Zurich: Schweizerisches Landesmuseum THAILAND Bangkok: Museum of Contemporary Art

IRELAND Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland FRANCE Compiègne: Musée National du Chateau Paris: Fondation Custodia

Catalogue by Susan Morris and Rachel Boyd Hall. Photography by Sophie Drury. Graphic design by Chris Rees Design Limited. Published by Richard Green. © Richard Green (and any applicable image right owners/artists or their estates) 2022. Database right maker: Richard Green. All rights reserved. Paintings are sold subject to our standard terms and conditions of sale, copies of which may be obtained on request and are also available at www.richardgreen.com. Richard Green is the registered trade mark of Richard Green Master Paintings Limited registered in the EU, the USA and other countries. Printed in England by Hampton Printing (Bristol) Ltd. Event Number: 6374.