Kees VAN DONGEN : Place Pigalle, c. 1950 (plate signed)
By VAN DONGEN Kees (1877-1968)
Kees van Dongen (1877–1968)
Place Pigalle, c. 1950
Original lithograph printed in colours on Johannot wove paper, printed by Atelier Mourlot for the Guilde Internationale de la Gravure, Geneva/Paris
plate-signed “van Dongen” in the lower margin; unnumbered; colour registration crosses present in all four margins
Dimensions: Sheet 38 × 56 cm (15 × 22 in.); Image 28 × 43 cm (11 × 16.9 in.)
Condition: Good. Sheet clean, colours unfaded, deckle edges intact. Registration crosses as printed. Faint surface soiling at the lower centre margin. Unframed.
References: Juffermans JL 23
Private collection, France
An omnibus lettered PLACE PIGALLE stands at the centre of the composition, its upper deck occupied and its team unhitched, while a second yellow omnibus and a brewer’s dray fill the space behind. In the foreground, pedestrians cross the square in Belle Époque dress: a woman in red with a child, a man in a pale suit, a driver in a blue jacket handling a white horse, and at the right a woman in green seen from behind. Van Dongen sets the scene in loose lithographic crayon over broad grey and yellow washes, reserving strong colour for four or five figures against a deliberately drained ground. Born at Delfshaven in 1877, he settled in Paris in 1899, showed at the 1905 Salon d’Automne alongside Matisse and became one of the principal Fauves; his early Montmartre years supplied the material he returned to throughout his life. This plate belongs to the group of Paris subjects he produced around 1950 for the Guilde Internationale de la Gravure, printed at the Mourlot workshop, of which Place Pigalle, la nuit (Juffermans JL 24) is the night-time counterpart. The present impression, on Johannot paper, unnumbered and retaining its registration crosses, lies outside the numbered edition of 290 on Arches and is consistent with a workshop proof.
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Price : 8,00 € ( 9.00 USD )
