Kees van Dongen

Dr A. Roudinesco, Paris (acquired from the artist and sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, October 10, 1968, lot 6)

Galerie Jean Paul Wick, Paris (acquired at the above sale)

Sale: Piasa, Paris, June 23, 1999, lot 35

Acquired by the present owner in 2000

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Van Dongen, 1949, no. 61 (titled Femme au chapeau and as dating from 1910)

Marseilles, Musée Cantini, Hommage à Van Dongen, 1969, no. 38

Excellent condition. Original canvas. Apart from some minor flecks of inpainting to the right of the mouth and nose, one minute spot on the forehead and two minor areas along the upper right edge visible under ultra-violet light, this work is largely untouched.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Self-possessed and poised, the young woman in Femme au grand chapeau is a striking example of Kees van Dongen's work from this period. With bold and fluid brushwork the artist has indicated her fitted jacket and high-necked white blouse, dark eyes and pursed red lips, as well as the white tulle gracing the wide black brimmed hat that dramatically offsets her face. This picture is a prime example of the type of portraits demanded by van Dongen's elite clientele, who clamored to sit for the artist in the years leading up to World War I (see fig. 1).  By the 1920s, these elegant portraits became some of the most coveted status symbols among the grande dames of Paris.

Van Dongen had started his career as an illustrator in his native Rotterdam but moved to Paris in 1897.  It was then that Félix Fénéon introduced him to artists associated with the avant-garde journal La Revue blanche, including Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. His politically oriented drawings, executed in a notational style with vibrant colors, anticipated Fauvism. Van Dongen became known as a painter in 1905 when he showed at the Salon d'Automne alongside Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. These artists would be dubbed Les Fauves or "Wild Beasts" for their unstudied handling of paint and daring use of color. As John Elderfield has noted, van Dongen's stylistic progression seemingly passed through "a Neo-Impressionist phase. By 1905 he had found his way into a loose impromptu style analogous to the mixed-technique Fauvism of the Matisse circle, especially in his paintings of nudes. But the main direction of his art was fast becoming geared to the representation of subjects different from those of the other Fauves" (John Elderfield, The "Wild Beasts": Fauvism and Its Affinities, New York, 1976, p. 66). Indeed, van Dongen soon moved away from the heightened color palette and demi-monde subjects he favored in the first decade of the twentieth century, turning instead to portraits of stylish Parisian society women executed in deep tones and eloquent paint application (see fig. 2).

Another influence on van Dongen's portraits of this period was the work of Pablo Picasso, who knew the artist at the Bateau-Lavoir during the first decade of the 20th century.  One can see the similarities in Picasso's early café pictures, completed at the turn of the century in Paris (see fig. 3), and the society portraits that dominated van Dongen's production nearly a decade later.  But with these later pictures, it is as if van Dongen has sanitized Picasso's absinthe-drinking women of the demi-monde and re-presented them here with a certain respectability that would appeal to the upper echelons of the bourgeoisie.

By 1912, Paris art dealers Ambroise Vollard, Antoine Druet, and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (who had devoted his very first exhibition to van Dongen), recognized the potential of subjects like the present one and championed the artist with one-man shows that brought him considerable success. Indeed,  his paintings of society women such as this would earn him a place as a chronicler of the period.

Fig. 1, Kees van Dongen in front of his portrait of Mme Malpel, 1909

Fig. 2, Kees van Dongen, La Parisienne de Montmartre, circa 1907-10, oil on canvas, Musée André Malraux, Le Havre

Fig. 3, Pablo Picasso, Femme assise à la terrasse d'un café, 1901, oil on paper on panel, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam 

Fig. 4, Kees Van Dongen, Le chapeau bleu, 1910-1912, oil on canvas, Private collection