Charing Cross Bridge, London

1906

André Derain

Artist, French, 1880 - 1954

We look across river at a bridge with a city skyline beyond in this stylized, horizontal landscape, which is painted entirely with broad, visible brushstrokes in vivid, saturated colors. The river spans nearly the width of the canvas, and the riverbank is lined to our left with a row of several buildings between us and the bridge. Those buildings are outlined with royal blue and filled in with mostly flat areas of color in coral pink, mint green, tangerine orange, and pinkish tan. Letters across the top of the building farthest from us reads “BREVER.” Eight boats are tied up at the foot of the buildings. The pointed hulls of three extend into the scene from the lower left corner, painted in marigold orange and outlined in cobalt blue. Five more boats, with rounded prows and hulls and painted with lapis blue and muted aqua, line up like a row of empty shoes. The bridge runs from behind the tallest building to our left across and off the canvas, and is painted with deep lapis blue with crimson-red Xes crisscrossing the span to suggest trestles. The front faces of the pilings below are also highlighted with red. The river fills most of the bottom half of the painting. The water to our left is painted as a field of coral pink with a few, short horizontal baby and cobalt-blue strokes, suggesting reflections of the boats and a bridge piling. A narrow band of kiwi green and sky blue lines the pink field to our right. Next to it, the water is painted as short, horizontal, disconnected strokes and dots mostly in bumblebee yellow with some strokes in bubblegum pink and pale burnt orange, all against the off white of the canvas below. The final zone, to our right, is more densely painted with short dashes in indigo, turquoise, and aqua blue. Beyond the bridge, the skyline is painted in silhouette with spiky spires to our left in mint green and a mass of shorter buildings in periwinkle blue to our right. Four clouds of pale yellow billow off the bridge in front of the skyline. The sky above is painted with short and long vertical strokes of butter yellow, rose pink, pale orange, and a few areas of watermelon pink. The artist signed the work with cobalt-blue paint near the lower left corner: “a derain.”
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Charing Cross Bridge, London (English)
View Tour Stop
On View

East Building Mezzanine, Gallery 217-B

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    John Hay Whitney Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 80.3 x 100.3 cm (31 5/8 x 39 1/2 in.)
    framed: 106.7 x 125.7 cm (42 x 49 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1982.76.3

More About this Artwork

Video:  André Derain "Charing Cross Bridge, London" (ASL)

This video provides an ASL description of André Derain's painting, Charing Cross Bridge, London.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

From the artist 1906 to (Ambroise Vollard [1867-1939], Paris);[1] sold December 1918 through Walter Pach and (Carroll Galleries, New York) to John Quinn [1870-1924], New York;[2] his estate; probably from which purchased by (Paul Guillaume [1891-1934], Paris); sold 1927 to (Alex Reid & Lefèvre, Glasgow and London);[3] sold 1931 to (Galerie Etienne Bignou, Paris); sold 1932 to G. Keller, Paris for (M. Knoedler and Co., London, New York and Paris).[4] Acquired in Paris between 1932 and 1938 by Mme. Kaethe Perls, Paris;[5] possibly by whom sold to Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., New York, Warrenton and Richmond, VA, who owned the painting by 1939;[6] (Chrysler sale, part II, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 16 February 1950, no. 54); (Julius H. Weitzner [1896-1986], London); sold 12 April 1950 to John Hay Whitney [1904-1982], Manhasset, New York;[7] deeded 1982 to the John Hay Whitney Charitable Trust, New York; gift 1982 to NGA.
[1] Receipt to Vollard from Derain dated 6 July 1906 in Vollard Archives, Documentation, Musée d'Orsay, Paris (microfilm reel III, copy in NGA curatorial files).
[2] Judith Zilczer, "The Noble Buyer:" John Quinn, Patron of the Avant-Garde, Washington, D.C., 1978: 155.
[3] Letter dated 27 July 1984 from Alex Reid & Lefevre, in NGA curatorial files, outlines ownership between Guillaume and Knoedler.
[4] This may be the painting which figured in Knoedler's 1933 exhibition of paintings from the Vollard Collection.
[5] According to handwritten note from Klaus Perls in response to letter dated 11 July 1984 from the National Gallery of Art, Perls' mother, Kaethe, acquired the painting in Paris between 1932-1938.
[6] Lent by Chrysler to the 1939 San Francisco exhibition.
[7] See letter dated 26 July 1984 from John Rewald, in NGA curatorial files. Receipt from Weitzner dated 12 April 1950 in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1907

  • Possibly La Libre Esthétique, quatorzième exhibition, Brussels, 1907, no. 87-90, one of four views of London.

1908

  • La Toison d'or, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 1908, no. 35-38, one of four views of London.

1928

  • Exhibition of Works by André Derain, The Lefevre Galleries, London, 1928, no. 2.

  • Cent Ans de Peinture Française, Musée Municipal d'Amsterdam, 1928, no. 7, repro.

1930

  • Derain, M. Knoedler & Company, New York and Chicago, 1930, no. 4 (Chicago) and no. 6 (New York).

1931

  • An Exhibition of Paintings by André Derain, Cincinnati Art Museum, 1930-1931, no. 18, repro.

1933

  • Paintings from the Ambroise Vollard Collection, Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1933, no. 20, as London: Houses of Parliment.

1939

  • Seven Centuries of Painting, The California Palace of the Legion of Honor and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, 1939-1940, no. Y-177.

1940

  • Origins of Modern Art, The Arts Club of Chicago, 1940, no. 17.

1941

  • Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; The Philsdelphia Museum of Art, 1941, no. 45.

1951

  • Selections from Five New York Private Collections, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1951, unnumbered catalogue.

1952

  • Les Fauves, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; San Francisco Museum of Art; The Art Gallery of Toronto, 1952-1953, no. 33.

1956

  • Pictures Collected by Yale Alumni, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1956, no. 128, repro.

1960

  • The John Hay Whitney Collection, The Tate Gallery, London, 1960-1961, no. 20, repro.

1973

  • The Impressionists in London, Hayward Gallery, London, 1973, no. 55, repro.

1976

  • The "Wild Beasts": Fauvism and Its Affinities, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1976, no. 80, repro.

1978

  • Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 39, repro.

1982

  • The Long Island Collections. A Century of Art: 1880-1980. Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn, New York, 1982, p. 35, repro.

1983

  • The John Hay Whitney Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983, no. 43, repro.

1986

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1986, no. 10, repro.

1994

  • André Derain: Le peintre du "trouble modern", Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, 1994-1995, no. 45, repro.

1995

  • Fauves, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1995-1996, no. 28, repro.

1997

  • André Derain, 1904-1912, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, 1997, no. 18, repro.

1998

  • Gifts to the Nation from Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no catalogue.

1999

  • Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1999, no. 76, repro.

  • Le Fauvisme ou "l'épreuve du feu": Éruption de la modernité en Europe, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1999-2000, no. 43, repro.

2004

  • Fauve Painting from the Permanent Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2004-2005, no catalogue.

2005

  • André Derain: The London Paintings, The Courtauld Institute Gallery, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2005-2006, no. 8, repro., as Hungerford Bridge at Charing Cross.

2006

  • Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant Garde, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2006-2007, no. 76, repro.

2017

  • The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870-1904, Tate Britain, London; Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, 2017-2018, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1928

  • Wilenski, R.H. "Andre Derain: An Austere Romantic." Apollo 7 (1928):169-174, repro.

1930

  • Dethuit, Georges. "Le Fauvisme IV." Cahiers d'Art 31 (1930):132

1941

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "341 Documents of Modern Art: The Chrysler Collection." Art News 39 (18 January 1941):13

  • Vaughan, Malcolm. Derain. New York, 1941: 37-42.

1956

  • Rewald, John. "French Paintings in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney." The Connoisseur 134, no. 552 (April 1956):138, repro.

1959

  • Sutton, Denys. André Derain. London, 1959:17-21

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 590, no. 909, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 128, repro.

1992

  • Kellermann, Michel. André Derain, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint. Vol. 1, 1895-1914. Paris, 1992: no. 88, 56, repro., as Londres: Le Pont de Hungerford a Charring-Cross.

Inscriptions

lower left: a derain

Wikidata ID

Q20191004

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