Modern & Contemporary Sale
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To be sold at Uppsala Auktionskammare’s Important Sale: Modern & Contemporary 9 – 12 November 2021
Lot 100 André Lhote (France 1885‑1962). ”La Brodeuse”. Signed A. Lhote upper left. Oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm.
Executed in 1912.
Numbered ”199” by the artist on the reverse.
This work will be included in the forthcoming André Lhote catalogue raisonné being prepared by Dominique Bermann Martin.
300.000 – 400.000 SEK
€ 30.000 – 40.000
Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm.
Counsel Carl Erik Schlyter (1899‑1970), Stocksund.
The collection of art dealer Tore Gerschman (1913‑1992), Stockholm, acquired from the above on 7 January 1964.
Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm, ”Den nya kubismen”, 1953, cat. no. 30.
Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm, ”Från Cézanne till Picasso – utställning av modern fransk konst i svensk ägo”, September 1954, cat. no. 215.
Bukowskis, Stockholm, ”Modernt före moderna”, 27 September–1 October 2013.
The present painting “La Brodeuse” is an important work from André Lhote’s early identification with Cubism. Painted in 1912, this striking portrait celebrates the modern era with its dynamic composition but at the same time connects with traditional portrait painting. The woman depicted in this painting acts as a fascinating insight into the development of André Lhote’s own cubist technique.
Initially inspired by traditional masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, the French artist André Lhote encountered his greatest inspiration during his first visit to Paris in 1907. At the Salon d’Automne, the vibrant works of Paul Cézanne had just been presented to the public and the young André Lhote was immediately struck by the colourful and almost luminous compositions. Today regarded as one of the most influential post-impressionist painters, Cézanne formed a bridge between the late 19th century movement Impressionism and the early 20th century Cubism. André Lhote successfully combined movements using the angular features of Cubism together with the bright colours of Post-impressionism. Both an artist and an important art critic, André Lhote qualified his own way of painting as ”ambiant cubisme” and declared: “To use colour well is as difficult as for a fish to pass from water to air on earth”.
Born in 1885 in Bordeaux in France, André Lhote learned woodcarving from the age of 12 and trained to become a sculptor, before he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. He painted on his spare time, influenced by Paul Gauguin and Cézanne, and eventually moved to Paris. At the beginning of the 20th century, Paris was flourishing with life and attracted artists from all over the world who wanted to educate themselves and seek inspiration from the many prominent galleries and museums. Lhote’s research led him towards Cubism, a style he interpreted in his own way, inspired by Roman and primitive art. His interest in Cubism began with his participation in the 1911 Salon d’Automne where he shifted away from his previous fauvist style. André Lhote fell into the influential artist group Section d’Or, which included artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Juan Gris, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. These artists were all associated with different forms of Cubism. In 1910 after four years in Paris, he held his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie Druet and only two years later he presented ten works with Section d’Or at the Galerie La Boëtie in Paris. In contrast to contemporary operating artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who were fully committed to the broken up forms of Cubism, Lhote retained elements of representation and Classicism in his paintings and continued to do so even in his later works.
André Lhote applied the style of Cubism to his landscapes, still-lifes and portraits in the early 1910s. “La Brodeuse” was painted in 1912 and is a magnificent example of Lhote’s cubist portraits with its interacting planes and geometrical forms. The composition is highly stylised with a sharpened feel and accomplished angles. This striking portrait engages the viewer with its contrasting fields of colours, forming a pattern of intriguing dissolved shapes and diagonal lines. The woman is painted in earthy and warm colours such as black, brown and beige with contrasting areas of yellow, green and pink, reminiscent of the colours used in Paul Gauguin’s primitivism style which Lhote had studied at the exhibition held in 1906 at Salon d’Automne. “La Brodeuse”, the embroiderer, is facing the viewer, working with both her hands in complete serenity. She radiates strength, elegance and avant-garde – an expression for the modern time. ■