Jean Metzinger

Galerie Philippe Reichenbach, Houston
Acquired from the above by the family of the present owners in 1960

This painting is in beautiful condition. The canvas has been lined using Beva-371 as an adhesive. The paint layer is well textured, clean and very lightly varnished. There are no retouches and the picture should be hung as is. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
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.

Jean Metzinger played a key role in the establishment of a distinct Cubist movement.  He exhibited in the Salon des Indépendents of 1911, and in the following months published a series of interviews and magazine articles defining the Cubist style.  Famously, Metzinger was the first to write of the fact that Picasso and Braque had dismissed traditional perspective and felt free to move around their subjects, studying them from various points (John Golding, Cubism: A History and an Analysis, London, 1959, p. 27).

Influenced by Picasso and Braque, the Duchamp brothers founded a group of modern painters call La Section d'Or (The Golden Section), to which Metzinger quickly became attached.  This group, which included artists such as Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier and Robert de la Fresnaye, was particularly interested in the use of mathematics and geometry to create a new and modern aesthetic, and to address the representational problems associated with Cubism.  Juan Gris was an occasional visitor to the group and many artists, including Léger and Picabia, exhibited in the 1912 inaugural exhibition.  Also in 1912, Metzinger and Albert Gleizes published Du Cubisme, the most comprehensive survey of the time that discussed the theories and aims of this movement.

In Du Cubisme, Metzinger proclaimed: "To establish pictorial space, we must have recourse to tactile and motor sensations, indeed to all our faculties.  It is our whole personality which, contracting or expanding, transforms the plane of the picture.  As it reacts, this plane reflects the personality back upon the understanding of the spectator, and thus pictorial space is defined: a sensitive passage between two subjective spaces.  The forms which are situated within this space spring from a dynamism which we profess to dominate.  In order that our intelligence may possess it, let us first exercise our sensitivity.  There are only nuances.  Form appears endowed with properties identical to those of color.  It is tempered or augmented by contact with another form, it is destroyed or it flowers, it is multiplied or it disappears (translated in Robert L. Herbert (ed.), Modern Artists on Art, New York, 1986, p. 8).

Composition Cubiste is an embodiment of the principles set forth in Du Cubisme.  During this time in Metzinger's career, he "became much more interested in bold patterning and decorative detail, and was more likely to integrate typography into the composition. . . Small circular forms, representing pipe bowls, bottle openings, cup rims, clocks, fruit, or simple dot patterns, unite various areas of the composition, at times suggesting witty visual puns, such as eyes or olives" (Jean Metzinger in Retrospect (exhibition catalogue), Iowa City, 1985, p. 45).  While the present work shows the artist's mastery of abstraction and geometry, all of the compositional elements combine to create a remarkable evocation of the still-life subject.  In this way, Composition Cubiste achieves the artist's goals, set out in Du Cubisme, of engaging with and enveloping the viewer.

Fig. 1 Robert Delaunay, L'homme à la tulipe (Portrait de Jean Metzinger), 1906, Oil on canvas