Louis Marcoussis

Studio of the artist
Mme. Marie Cutolli
Galerie des Quatre Mouvements (Galerie 1900-2000), Paris (acquired from the above)
Galerie Lansberg, Paris (acquired from the above)
Private Collection, France
Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery, New York
Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above) 

Paris, Galerie 1900-2000, Paris-Hollywood, 1981-82, illustrated in color in the catalogue
Paris, Galerie 1900-2000, Almanach Demi Stock, 1905-1983, 1983, no. 133, illustrated in the catalogue

This work is in good condition and consists of multiple sheets that are joined. The surface has some minor scattered scrapes and scratches and some small water drips here are there, but presents well aside from these minor problems. There is a small area of flaking around the green fish at center left. Under UV: a small amount of inpainting in some of the white pigments: in the diamond shapes in the lower left quadrant, in the shell shape at upper left, and in the white circle at center right. Otherwise fine.
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.

Born in Warsaw, Louis Marcoussis moved to Paris in 1903 after having studied painting and print-making in Cracow's Academy of Fine Arts. Although his career began as an Impressionist, Marcoussis met Apollinaire, Braque and Picasso in 1910 and joined the Cubist movement, exhibiting in 1912 at the Section d'Or exhibition at the Galerie de La Boetie. This extensive exhibition, which involved almost 200 works by thirty-two artists, is considered a high-point of Cubism. That same year, Marcoussis was commissioned to paint a mural (The Checker Board) for a restaurant that was the haunt of artists and writers in Montmartre (Douglas Cooper, The Cubist Epoch, London, 1970, p. 132). Under the influence of artists such as Braque and Picasso, Marcoussis explored spatial relationships and tilted planes. Guy Habasque comments about Marcoussis' Cubist works: "Volumes are fully rendered and bathed in an all-pervading light that softly models forms, but also gives line an intrinsic value, often detaching it from the mass it circumscribes" (Guy Habasque, Cubism, Paris, 1959, p. 69).

Marcoussis painted the present work after returning from the Great War. Unlike many of the other Cubist artists, Marcoussis returned full-time to painting at war's end. La Table pays homage to the works of 1910-1920, produced by those artists who abandoned their pre-war Cubist style upon coming home from the front. Initially respecting the grammar and vocabulary of Analytical Cubism, Marcoussis evolved a unique manner that drew equally on the accretive tendencies and technical experimentation associated with the Synthetic period. The complicated, built-up arrangement of colored forms atop the table is the centerpiece of this monumental work. In discussing his later Cubist works, Guy Habasque states, "For Marcoussis was now beginning to shake off earlier influences and moving towards that subtler mode of expression, charged with poetic intimations, which was to characterize his art after 1920" (ibid., p. 71).

Fig. 1 Photograph of Louis Marcoussis as a student at Cracow's Academy of Fine Arts