Provenance

Galerie Paul Vallotton

Galerie Paul Vallotton

Swiss, est. 1913

Explore selected works

People walk or stand along a city street in front of buildings outlined in amethyst purple and hung with flags in this loosely painted, vertical composition. In the bottom quarter of the canvas, the people are painted with a few strokes of brown, pale blue, dark purple, or pale pink. Two four or five-story buildings fill most of the rest of the composition. Four flags flutter from flagpoles along a balcony or arcade on the central building. Two flags have blue crosses outlined in white against red backgrounds. One other is vertically striped with blue, white, and then red, and the fourth has a yellow cross on a blue background. The upper-story exterior walls of the buildings and the sky are mottled parchment white with a few touches of very pale pink or yellow. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “Raoul Dufy 1906.”
Raoul Dufy, July 14 in Le Havre, 1906, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.13

July 14 in Le Havre

Raoul Dufy · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.13

We look across the ruins of a white stone and brick building to a second set of ruins, now of gray stone against a butter-yellow sky in this horizontal landscape painting. Blocks and shards in tan, ivory and parchment white, pale orange, and light yellow are heaped along the bottom edge of the composition. The partially standing wall on the far side supports a few curved tiles, presumably from the previous roof. Long, vivid-green grass grows on both sides of this wall. On a low hill beyond the first ruins, partial arches and fragments of walls rise from a mound of gray rubble. Black lines suggest other supports in the building. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and a few trees with dark green canopies and spindly trunks are silhouetted against the yellow sky. The artist signed and dated the lower right corner, “F. VALLOTTON. 17.”
Félix Vallotton, The Church of Souain, 1917, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1990.30.1

The Church of Souain

Félix Vallotton · 1917 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1990.30.1

Tall trunks and the canopies trees sweep to our left in a stiff wind in this horizontal landscape painting. The bottom half of the canvas is packed solid with leafy trees. Several spindly trunks shoot high above the canopy against a sky mottled with a sheet of pale gray clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “F. VALLOTTON. 10.”
Félix Vallotton, The Wind, 1910, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.41

The Wind

Félix Vallotton · 1910 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.41

Bibliography

1986

  • Hahnloser-Ingold, Margrit. "Collecting Matisses of the 1920s in the 1920s," in Matisse: The Early Years in Nice. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986: 265.

  • Gloor, Lukas. Von Böcklin zu Cézanne: Die Rezeption des franszösischen Impressionismus in der deutschen Schweiz. Bern, 1986:197-201.