Conjuring a specific period and mood, Pierrot Tired underscores Guy Pène du Bois’s skills as both a painter and a trenchant social observer. Painted at the end of the 1920s, the canvas demonstrates the artist’s talent for transporting solid, majestic, Renaissance forms into stylized, urban settings. At a time when abstraction held critical dominance, Pène du Bois’s style was characterized by a richly toned, painterly realism as well as a neoclassical devotion to volume and form. Yet this work’s emphasis on uneasy social interactions and urban anomie reflects a modern sensibility. The critic Royal Cortissoz was the first to note the artist’s “gift for mordant characterization,” finding in his work a “cynicism that dispassionately impales a type, and, practicing again the art of omission, leaves it to speak for itself.” Despite the simplified figures of the composition, the painting is rich in psychological and sociological detail.
Two figures are seated in a booth at a Parisian café sharing a drink. Both are fashionably dressed and decidedly cosmopolitan. The woman sports a sleek helmet of dark hair. A white stole is draped around her neck and over her left shoulder; her lips are painted red and lined in black. Her companion, by contrast, is more understated. Dressed in a banker’s three-piece suit, he sits quietly and studies his drink, a tall glass of amber liquid, a form that is balanced by the stack of coasters on the other side of the table. The mood is quiet. The figures are physically close yet emotionally distant. Although their bodies brush against each other, their eyes do not meet, each isolated by individual thoughts. Behind the booth is a window onto the street outside, where a second couple is visible with their heads bent toward each other. The woman wears a hat and the man, with a distinctive cap and an epaulet on his shoulder, appears to be in uniform. Though the image seen through the window is murky, the body language of the couple outside is more intimate than that of the couple in the café.
The seated man wears a brown suit that blends almost seamlessly into the colors of the banquette, with the effect that he recedes into space. The gentleman is bald with a smattering of white hair at the temples. As evidenced by her youthful hairdo, his companion is a great deal younger than he is. Are they married? Having an affair? Is he an old fool attempting to reclaim his youth through a dalliance with a young woman? Pène du Bois leaves the nature of their relationship an open question. Both faces are expertly modeled yet heavily shadowed; shadows are created through a buildup of rich brown and ocher paint, with lavender contour lines defining the woman’s profile. The murky faces contribute to the ambiguity of the scene, coupling the unreadability of expression with the impossibility of connection.
Several strands of Pène du Bois’s personal background intertwine in Pierrot Tired. In 1899 he entered the New York School of Art, where he studied under William Merritt Chase (American, 1849 - 1916). In 1902 he met Robert Henri (American, 1865 - 1929), whose advocacy of realism and simple forms had a lasting impact on the artist. After studying with Henri for three years, he traveled to Paris, where he immersed himself in French art and made his debut at the Salon. Early collectors of his work included Chester Dale, Albert Coombs Barnes, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. During the 1920s Pène du Bois spent six years living in France, returning to New York in 1930 following the stock market crash. As an outsider, he was fascinated by the social interactions of the upper crust. He struggled to make ends meet for much of his career, working as a writer to supplement his income. Pène du Bois was a critic for the New York American, the New York Evening Post, and the New York Tribune, while also serving as the editor of the magazine Arts and Decoration for seven years. The skills of observation and analysis that he honed as a critic inflected such works as Pierrot Tired with an incisive understanding of social relations.
During Pène du Bois’s sojourn in France the artist found Paris too expensive and lived 30 miles outside the city. He continued to direct his sharp focus on urban scenes from a position of both physical and psychological distance. It is unclear whether the subjects of Pierrot Tired are Parisians or Americans. Wealthy Americans were a common sight in Paris at the time, and the artist was fascinated by the expatriate culture. His 1926 painting Café Madrid [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Guy Pène du Bois, Café Madrid (Mr. and Mrs. Chester Dale), 1926, oil on panel, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. Bequest of John Hinkle, Nephew of Chester Dale, a portrait of the prominent collectors Chester and Maud Dale, attests to his interest in Americans living abroad.
Pierrot, the French variant of the Italian character Pedrolino, is the sad clown of the commedia dell’arte, characterized by his naïveté and his haplessness in matters of love. The best-known depiction of the character is Jean Antoine Watteau’s 18th-century painting Pierrot, which depicts the clown as a melancholy figure dressed in an ill-fitting costume, his open face looking toward the viewer with despair [fig. 2]
[fig. 2] Jean-Antoine Watteau, Pierrot, formerly known as Gilles, c. 1718–1719, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Image: Franck Raux. It has been in the collection of the Musée du Louvre since 1869, and it is quite possible Pène du Bois encountered it during his six years in France. As in Pierrot Tired, the central figure of Pierrot is isolated within his social milieu. Watteau’s clown is weary; his facial expression and slumped posture suggest that he is exhausted by his designated role. Pène du Bois’s Pierrot is similarly moon-faced and dissatisfied. The figure’s mannequin-like stiffness and the pervasive air of ennui evoke a man chafing against his designated type, the wealthy fool for love, and tired of fulfilling society’s expectations. The title suggests a parallel between the artifice and codified roles that define the commedia dell’arte and the artificial and stultifying world of high society.
When the painting was found by the artist’s family after his death the title of the work was unknown. The artist’s son-in-law, thinking the interior resembled a restaurant that the family frequented in Manhattan, called it Drink at the “Russian Bear.” The painting was exhibited under this title for the next 25 years, until research revealed the artist’s original title.
Kerry Roeder
August 17, 2018
