Man Sitting

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

L’homme assis, 1958
Man Sitting

Oil on canvas
91.4 x 72.6 cm.; 36 x 28 5/8 inches
Signed and dated “Jacques Villon 58”, lower left

Verso: signed and dated again and titled “Jacques Villon 58 l’Homme assis”

Provenance:
Galerie Louis Carré & Co., Paris
Private collector (acquired from the above circa 1990)

Exhibited:
Salon d’Automne, Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées, Paris, Nov.-Dec., 1958: no. 808.
Exposition de peintres contemporains, Galerie Charles Lienhard, Zürich, December 1962-January 1963: no. 1172 (illustrated in catalogue).
Jacques Villon 1875-1963: Retrospective, Espace Riquet, Béziers, July-September, 1996.

Literature:
San Lazzaro, “Pourquoi la Nature revient-elle à l’art?”, XXe Siècle, 1958: p. 6 (illus).

Notes:

1. Patrick Bongers has confirmed the authenticity of this painting.
2. This painting relates in a number of ways to an earlier Villon painting: Portrait de Monsieur Duchamp from 1913.  This painting, from the collection of Jean Buaret in Paris, was a portrait of Eugène Duchamp, the father of Villon, and his brothers: Marcel Duchamp and Raymond Duchamp-Villon.  This latter painting was exhibited in: Jacques Villon, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, 1951: no. 6; and Cubism & La Section d’Or , Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C.; Dallas Museum of Art, and the Minneapolis Museum of Art, 1991: fig. 5 and reproduced in color on p. 22.  It also is reproduced in: Jacques Villon, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1976: fig. 38a, p. 60, where dated 1912.  In both the above-described Portrait de Monsieur Duchamp as well as in this painting (perhaps based on the same subject), Villon has presented the figure with a similar composition (though reversed).  Both of these paintings are based on the use of the Golden Section (La Section d’Or), a triangle whose height is one half of its length.  It is above all in the use of the Golden Section that the “cubism” of Villon (and also of Gleizes and Metzinger), distinguished itself from that of Braque and Picasso.

Portrait of the Actor (Felix Barre)

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

Portrait d’Acteur (Félix Barré), 1913
Portrait of an Actor (Félix Barré)

Drypoint
40 x 31.5 cm.; 15 3/4 x 12 3/8 inches
Signed, dated 1913 and numbered 3/32

Provenance:
Collection of Jacqueline and Bernard Gheerbrant, founders of the Librairie La Hune at St. Germain-des-Près in Paris.

Reference:
Auberty & Pérussaux no. 199
Ginestet & Pouillon E. 283

Notes:

1. A superb impression of this major work which many regard as Villon’s tour de force among the artist’s Golden Section period drypoints.  Shoemaker (Innes Shoemaker, Jacques Villon and His Cubist Prints, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001: 28) refers to the dramatic effect of the drypoint in this work “as a result of the more aggressive crossing of planes, the stark contrasts of black and white, and the energetic linear hatchings that build the construction of planes…Villon allowed the compositional structure of planes and volumes to dominate the naturalistic representation of the subject, producing a work that is far more powerful than his Cubist drypoints to date”.
2. The “actor” here is Félix Barré, a neighbor of Villon on the rue Lemaître in Puteaux.  The Barrés and the Villons vacationed together on the Normandy coast.  Villon had previously depicted Barré and his wife, nicknamed La Bousine, together with Villon’s wife Gaby in a color aquatint of 1904: Sous la tente, sur la plage (Blonville), (Ginestet & Pouillon E. 137).

Nude Standing, With Arm Raised

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

Nu debout, bras en l’air, 1909-1910
Nude Standing, With Arm Raised

Etching and drypoint: edition of 23
63.8 x 48.9 cm.; 21 ½ x 16 inches
Signed and numbered 11/23

Provenance:
Collection of Jacqueline and Bernard Gheerbrant, founders of the Librairie La Hune at St. Germain-des-Près in Paris.

Reference:
Auberty & Pérussaux no. 163
Ginestet & Pouillon E. 245

Notes:

1. The model for this work was called Reine.  At this time, Villon and Marcel Duchamp both depicted this model.  She also appears in Duchamp’s painting of 1911: Jeune homme et jeune fille dans le printemps and she also is found in a Duchamp sketch of 1911.  Since Duchamp’s painting in this case dates a year or more later, it also is possible that Duchamp used this Villon print as his “model” for his painting.
2. This work forms a notable pre-Section d’or (Golden Section) ensemble with Villon’s Nucouché (E. 246), Femme assise nue (E. 247) and Femme debout de dos (E. 248). From these four works, this one is the most spectacular, most daring and the one usually chosen to represent this essential period in the development of Villon’s graphic oeuvre and of twentieth-century graphic art in general.

Musicians in the Bistro

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

Musiciens chez le bistro, 1912
Musicians in the Bistro

Etching developed first in aquatint and soft-ground
27.1 x 23.7 cm.; 10 ¾ x 9 3/8 inches
Signed and numbered 31/50

Provenance:
Collection of Jacqueline and Bernard Gheerbrant, founders of the Librairie La Hune at St. Germain-des-Près in Paris.

Reference:
Auberty & Pérussaux no.185
Ginestet & Pouillon E. 270

Notes:

1. This is a key work in Villon’s graphic oeuvre.  Early in 1912, Villon (and Gleizes, Gris and Metzinger as well) read about the Golden Section (a triangle whose height is exactly one-half of its width) in the then new translation into French of Leonardo da Vinci’s Trattato della Pittura (Treatise on Painting).  Villon, as an artist at this time, could have returned to a form of post-Impressionism or could have moved in the direction of the Cubism being developed by Braque and Picasso.  In Musiciens chez le Bistro, Villon has chosen a very post-Impressionist type of subject at the same time that his treatment of the subject is quite avant-garde for that time and very different from that of the Impressionists.  Villon in fact has created from an underlying impressionist-type subject (treated interestingly in its early states in an impressionist manner) a series of abstract forms which in themselves and in their juxtapositions have their own aesthetic values.  Later in 1912 and then particularly in 1913-1914, veering sharply away from both his own post-Impressionist tendencies as well as from the Cubism of Braque and Picasso, Villon created a series of what we now perceive as revolutionary and independently conceived masterpieces based on the use of the Golden Section.
2. The guitariste in this scene is Jacques Bon who lived at 3 rue Lemaître in Puteaux, next door to 7 rue Lemaître where Villon and his wife Gabrielle (“Gaby”) lived from 1906 onwards.  Jacques Bon’s sister, Yvonne (not to be confused with Villon’s own sister, also named Yvonne), married Villon’s sculptor-brother Raymond Duchamp-Villon.  Jacques Bon is portrayed in a number of Villon’s other works, including the drypoint/etching L’Aventure dating from 1935 (ref; Ginestet & Pouillon E.387).

Comedy of Society

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

Comédie de Société, 1903
Comedy of Society

Etching, color aquatint and watercolor: edition of 50
50 x 42 cm; 20 x 16 5/8 inches
Numbered lower left; signed and dated, lower right: Jacques Villon 03

References:
Auberty and Perussaux 43
Ginestet and Pouillon E.75

Notes:

1. Villon’s dealer, Sagot, in 1903 described this work:

In a sumptuous interior, a hall decorated with green plants, three ladies are sitting: two are together on a beige armchair, the other sits in a blue and red armchair.  The latter is in an attractive pose, looking to the left at a group of actors who are not visible from the left.  The three women are seen against a background of tapestry depicting various figures.  The floor is covered with a red rug.

Young Girls Dancing the Cake-Walk

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

Le cake-walk des petites filles, (trial proof), 1904
Young Girls Dancing the Cake-Walk

Drypoint and aquatint in colors
30.5 x 42 cm.; 12 x 16 1/2 inches
Signed and annotated

References:
Auberty and Perussaux 56
Ginestet and Pouillon E. 102

Notes:

The unusual freshness of the aquatinted colors makes this a unique and exceptional impression of this work.

The Small Mechanical Workshop

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

 Le petit Atelier de mécanique, 1914
The Small Mechanical Workshop

Etching
16 x 19.7 cm.; 6 1/8 x 7 9/16 inches
Signed and annotated:  “tiré à 50”

Exhibited:
Cubism & La Section d’Or, Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C.; Dallas Museum of Art; and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1991: no. 62 and reproduced on page 149.

References:
Auberty & Pérussaux 202
Ginestet & Pouillon E. 289
Notes:

1. This etching testifies to the interest of the Duchamps in the machine as the quintessence of the modern world.  Villon stated: “l’apparence mécanique ajoute à l’éfficacité artistique” (mechanical appearance adds to artistic effectiveness).  This work is closely related to three Villon paintings: Le petit atelier mécanique, 1913 (Philllips Collection, Washington D. C.); the second painting (dated 1914) last known to be in a private New York collection (pl. 59a in: Jacques Villon, Fogg Art Museum, 1976); the third being L’Atelier de mécanique, dated 1914 (former collection of John Quinn, New York; then collection of Ferdinand Howald, Columbus, Ohio; now in the Columbus Museum of Art).  This latter work is very close to the image of the present etching, but depicted in the reverse direction.  This would appear to indicate that the etching was done after (après) the execution of the painting and as an interpretation/variant based on (d’après) the painting.
2. This etching is the last in a series of Villon Section d’Or prints executed between 1912 – 1914.  Commencing with Musiciens chez le Bistro (Musicians in a Bistro) of 1912, each of these works appears increasingly abstract, with the most abstract composition being this last one.  Except for the wires and pulleys, represented by lines and triangles at the upper right, the subject is in the this case virtually unidentifiable.

Woman with Collie Dog

JACQUES VILLON
Damville (Normandy) 1875 – 1963 Puteaux

La femme au Chien Colley, 1905
Woman with Collie Dog

Drypoint: edition of 50
514 x 393 mm.; 20 1/4 x 15 1/2 inches
Signed and numbered

Reference:
Ginestet & Pouillon 133-II/II