French Paintings 1890–1950

On View: East Building, Ground Level

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60 artworks on view.

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This abstract, horizontal painting is created with broad, visible strokes in areas of saffron orange, harvest yellow, carnation pink, violet, tomato red, cobalt and ultramarine blue, and shades of icy, seafoam, and pine green. Many of the colors are layered like strata in a canyon. A few objects are more recognizable, like a loosely painted pink kettle with royal-blue highlights at the back next to a bottle outlined with blue against the background. A spring-green teapot with a peach lid is to our right. The surface, presumably the table, is painted in tones of marigold and pumpkin orange. The left two-thirds of the background is painted with strokes of lavender-blue and mauve-pink streaked with cream white. The rightmost third is lapis blue. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “Henri Matisse.”

Still Life

Henri Matisse

c. 1905

Oil on cardboard on wood  Accession ID  1970.17.40

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
Two people are depicted in this painting. The person on the left is standing with their hands on a wooden chair. They have light skin, close-cut hair, and wear a long, black, high-necked dress. The person on the right is seated or standing in front of a wooden table. They wear a white ruffled top and a dark red skirt with lighter red spots, and their hair is styled back in a bun. Their skin is pale yellow, and they hold a light-colored piece of fabric or paper. The two people are looking towards each other. On the table between the two people there appears to be a red bowl and a patterned, off-white object with a black handle. In the background are muted beige walls with a brown and white patterned object near the top left corner. The paint has been applied in thick brushstrokes, and the people and objects lack detail.

The Conversation

Edouard Vuillard

1891

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1970.17.92

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
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Two pale-skinned women are shown from the waist up behind a counter in an interior space in this nearly square painting. Loosely painted patterns on their clothing, bunches of flowers to our right, and the background to our left create a patchwork of claret red, ivory white, forest green, deep burgundy, and golden yellow. The woman standing closer to us takes up the left half of the composition. She faces our right in profile. Her features are painted with blended strokes so are indistinct. Her auburn hair is pulled up, and her high-collared, garnet-red and white striped shirt has long sleeves with puffy shoulders. She looks down at a red vase of flowers she holds at its base with the hand we see. The second woman stands at the first woman’s far shoulder. She turns her face slightly toward us, and also gazes down at the flowers on the counter. Her high-necked shirt is ruby red. Four wine-red vases in front of the women are filled with dark maroon-red or cream-white flowers, perhaps chrysanthemums, forest-green and tan greenery, and one vivid, tomato-red blossom. A gap between two vases could be another vase either patterned with white and celestial blue or reflecting those colors. A dark red and two white blossoms are in the lower left corner of the composition, next to a long, lidded box with light brown sides and a navy-blue top. A loosely painted form in the upper left corner, over the first woman’s shoulder, could be a figurine or another person. Though the details are vague, there is a suggestion of a face turned leftward. She has blond hair and wears a long, loose marigold-yellow garment. The right arm, to our left, could be raised to shoulder height, and she stands before a crimson background, maybe a curtain. The rest of the background is painted with dots and touches of apple red, maroon, orange, sage green, dark brown, and butter yellow. The artist signed the canvas near the lower right corner, “E. Vuillard.”

Woman in a Striped Dress

Edouard Vuillard

1895

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1983.1.38

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
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This painting depicts three women gathered closely together. The woman on the left appears to kneel on the ground, her face pointed towards us. She has long black hair that is partially tied up, and she wears a pale pink dress. A small white dog sits by her knees, next to another animal that may be a small white bird. Behind her and to the right is a woman who may be sitting or standing, with short gray hair, a pale blue hat with a pink plume, and a white dress with a pale blue sash and mesh sleeves. She is reaching toward the face of the woman on the right, who stands with her body turned and her hand on the central woman's blue hat. This woman on the right has wavy yellow hair and wears a pale yellow dress and a pale pink hat with a black bow and a pink ribbon. The women all have pale white skin with minimalist facial features consisting of simple black eyes and small, rose-colored lips. The background is made of overlapping patches of different shades of cool-toned green, some of which are shaped like leafy branches.

In the Park

Marie Laurencin

1924

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.10.158

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
We look slightly down onto a nearly nude woman with pale pink skin, who sits facing away from us as she lifts her hands to her dark hair in this vertical painting. The scene is painted with broad, visible strokes, and some details are difficult to make out. The woman's torso and head almost fill the vertical height of the painting. The scene is loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but she seems to face a mirror above the small table of a vanity. Visible brushstrokes in tones of pale peach and pink, taupe, and faint sage green capture her spine, shoulder blades, the muscles of her arms, and the dimple above her round buttocks. She uses both hands to pin up her chestnut-brown hair above a rectangular clip painted in muted gold with touches of light pink. She sits sideways in a wooden chair so the ladder-back is to our right. Her thighs are wrapped in a fluffy white piece of cloth, perhaps a towel, which may be wrapped with a ruby-red cloth or it could be a red cushion beneath. The surface of the narrow tabletop in front of her, to our left, is painted with areas of sage green, elephant gray, and royal blue. About a dozen orbs in coral orange and fuchsia pink above and around a band of canary yellow suggest flowers in a yellow vase along the left side of the table. The mirror above the vanity has a wide, gold frame. The woman’s reflection is painted with long strokes of ash brown with a few touches of rose pink. Though abstracted, the reflection seems to capture her torso and one bent elbow. The wall to our left of the vanity is pale pea green and to our right, dark brown. Streaks of honey-brown against a black field in the lower right corner suggests an area rug on an otherwise peanut-brown floor. The artist signed the work in marine blue in the lower left corner, “Henri Matisse.”

La coiffure

Henri Matisse

1901

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.10.165

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
A person sits at the side of a dappled dirt path that curls along the edge of a green hill and through towering trees in this loosely painted horizontal landscape. The person is painted with a few strokes of peach to represent a light-skinned person wearing a white shift and blue hat. The low hill slopes down to the right. Trees are loosely painted there in the ravine and along the far side of the path. The sky is pale periwinkle blue. The artist signed the lower left corner, “Henri-Matisse.”

Les Gorges du Loup

Henri Matisse

1920/1925

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.10.166

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
Two people, perhaps a woman and man, and a baby sit at a table in a courtyard surrounded by vine-covered walls in this square painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible dabs, dashes, or smudges. The table is to the left of center. The man sits on the far side, to our left, and the woman, who appears to have her brown hair pulled up, sits facing away from us wearing a smoke-gray garment. A child wearing pink and pale blue sits to our right of the woman and seems to raise both arms. The ground is dotted with cream white and fog gray against the brown board on which this was painted. Steps lead up to a building at the back of the courtyard to the left, and the vine-covered wall stretches across the right two-thirds of the background. The artist signed the lower left corner, “E Vuilllard.”

Repast in a Garden

Edouard Vuillard

1898

Oil on cardboard  Accession ID  1963.10.229

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
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A jumble of abstracted objects, including a stringed instrument, tableware, and fruit, are gathered on a tabletop in this horizontal still life painting. The objects are made up of areas of mostly flat color in muted fawn brown, cream, bright white, fern green, slate gray, and black. Many forms are outlined in black, creating the impression that the some shapes are two-dimensional and assembled almost like a collage. To our left, a musical instrument, perhaps a lute, sits next to appears to be lined paper, perhaps abstracted sheet music, at the center of the composition. In front of the paper, two pieces of pale yellow fruit sit on a silver plate. A rolled up white napkin sits next to the plate in front of an urn and a jug. A steel-gray goblet sits to the left of the plate. The background behind the table is painted with zones of moss green, sky blue, and gray. The edges appear torn, as if the painting is done on a loose canvas or sheet of paper that was then affixed to a support. The surface of the painting is rough and appears scratched throughout, and looks as if paint had been applied when nearly dry. The artist signed and dated the painting in white near the lower left corner: “G Braque 28.”

Still Life: The Table

Georges Braque

1928

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.10.92

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
A nude woman lying across a brown divan in front of a russet-red wall is loosely painted with areas of mottled color in this horizontal composition. The woman fills the wide canvas so her head is angled into the upper left corner, and her legs extend off the right edge of the composition below the knees. Her long, oval face rests back against the couch, and she looks at us with slitted, almond-shaped eyes under dark, shallowly arched brows. She has a long, straight nose, flushed cheeks, a double chin, and her pink lips are closed. Her breasts fall to each side so we only see the pink nipple closer to us. She has a rounded belly and a triangle of brown hair at her groin. Her arms rest alongside her body. The couch has a low, upholstered arms sweeping down the sides. Black lines in the red wall behind the couch suggest molding or cabinetry. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “modigliani.”

Nude on a Divan

Amedeo Modigliani

1918

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.10.77

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
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A horizontally oriented landscape with a bridge over a body of water, a grassy lawn, and trees is loosely painted mostly in shades of lemon yellow, spring and forest green, and sky blue. Brushstrokes are broad and blended throughout so details are often difficult to make out or take time to interpret. We look across the landscape from an elevated position, and the horizon nearly reaches the top of the canvas. In the lower left corner, a bridge painted with smoky, pale purple curves gently over a body of water. The lawn stretches to the right, where it meets what might be a fence or screen painted with pale green, rust brown, magenta pink, and yellow angling in from the lower right corner. Just beyond the rise, a person wearing a blue shirt carries a stick over one shoulder, perhaps a fishing pole. Beyond this, trees are covered with wispy, cottony canopies. The lawn continues to the left, where a second person walks toward us. Both people appear to have pale, peachy skin. Continuing into the distance, the impression of a tree-covered, shallow valley is painted with rounded, blended forms in leaf green, icy blue, and aquamarine under a periwinkle-blue sky. The artist signed the lower left corner, “Bonnard.”

A Spring Landscape

Pierre Bonnard

c. 1935

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1970.17.10

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
Shown from the knees up, a woman wearing a black dress is painted with areas of mottled color in this vertical painting. The woman’s body faces us, her shoulders sloping steeply down from her elongated neck. She sits with her hands in her lap, and she looks down and to our left. Her peach-colored, long, narrow face comes to a point at her chin, and her cheeks are flushed pink. Her almond-shaped eyes, curved brows, long nose, and closed lips are outlined with gray. Her brown hair is pulled up and back, and short bangs brush her forehead. A gold-colored disk at the point of the dress’s V-neck could be a brooch. Two parallel black lines suggest a chair rail running behind the woman’s elbows. The background is painted with visible strokes of fog gray and moss green above the rail and darker, elephant gray below. The artist signed the upper right corner, “modigliani.”

Café Singer

Amedeo Modigliani

1917

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.10.44

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103
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This painting displays bold lines and contrasting shapes that create the silhouette of a person sitting and holding pieces of fruit in their lap. The person appears to be nude, and their skin is painted in multiple shades of brown. The fruit on their lap is dark purple with green leaves growing from it, and it seems to be gathered in a white cloth. The background features swirling patterns in earthy tones including pale yellow and brown. Surrounding the shape of the person are white swirling lines and green shapes.

Nude Woman with Fruit

Georges Braque

1925

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1963.10.89

On View: East Building Ground Level, Gallery E103

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