Toyen

Vente : Me Galateau, Limoges, 17 juin 1984, lot 194
Acquis lors de cette vente par le propriétaire actuel

Prague, City Gallery, Toyen, 2000, no. 42

Karel Srp, Toyen, Gallery of the City of Prague, Argo, 2007, no. 42, reproduit p. 49
'Reconstructing Toyen', Art in America, avril 2001, reproduit p. 131

Please note that measurements in inches are incomplete in the printed catalogue and should read 33 7/8 x 25 1/8 in. The canvas is not lined. There is a network of stable craquelures in the white pigments of the lower part of the composition, visible in the catalogue illustration. UV light examination reveals two very minor spots of retouching along the upper edge and three other pin-head-sized spots of retouching in the pale cream area running along the right edge. Apart from a 3cm vertical line of retouching in the centre of the composition, this work is in good condition.
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signed 'Toyen' and dated '26' (lower right), oil on canvas. Executed in 1926.

A l'instar du Carnaval de Nice pour Štyrský (voir lot précédent), Le Plongeur de 1926 est l'une des compositions les plus abouties de la période française de Toyen (1902-1980). Après s'être liée en 1922 avec Štyrský, si étroitement que certains crurent qu'elle était sa compagne, elle fit partie du groupe Devetsil qui tenta d'opérer la synthèse des avant-gardes de cette époque, accomplissant l'action artistique la plus avancée en Tchécoslovaquie. Toyen exposa ses premières œuvres dans le cadre d'une manifestation de Devetsil en 1923. "Elle fit des recherches variées, d'esprit ultramoderne, tantôt rivalisant avec l'imaginaire populaire, tantôt évoquant à l'aide d'une technique de coulures un univers craquelé et fissuré de toutes parts, en réussissant à exprimer à travers l'abstraction une atmosphère de subtile angoisse" (Sarane Alexandrian, Les Peintres surréalistes, Hannah Graham, 2009, p. 90). Dans Le Plongeur, l'architecture lumineuse d'une sorte de bathyscaphe emprunte ses lignes parfaites au vocabulaire du Purisme, mouvement alors défendu par Le Corbusier et Ozenfant. Mais Toyen y incorpore des éléments animaux et végétaux, créant un monde contradictoire, glacial et vivant, nocturne et coloré, de symbiose et de transfert, propre à l'esthétique onirique du Surréalisme dont André Breton venait de publier le célèbre Manifeste en 1924. Le Plongeur fut exposé à la Prague City Gallery en 2000, à l'occasion de la première rétrospective du peintre à Prague depuis son exil à Paris en 1948.

 

In the same vein as Štyrský's Carnaval de Nice (see preceding lot), Le Plongeur, painted in 1926, is one of the most accomplished compositions from Toyen's French period. After becoming involved with Štyrský in 1922, to such an extent that many believed her to be his partner, Toyen joined the Devetsil group which aimed to assemble all the avant-gardes of the time, achieving the most advanced artistic action ever seen in Czechoslovakia. She exhibited her first works in the context of a Devetsil event in 1923. "She carried out such varied research, with an ultramodern spirit, at once revitalising popular imagery, and at the same time evoking with a dripping technique a universe splitting and cracking at the seams, succeeding in expressing through abstraction a feeling of subtle anguish" (Sarane Alexandrian, Les Peintres surréalistes, Hannah Graham, 2009, p. 90). In Le Plongeur, the luminous architecture of a diving vessel lends its contours perfectly to the vocabulary of Purism, the movement promoted by Le Corbusier and Ozenfant. But Toyen also incorporates animal and plant elements, creating a contradictory world, at once glacial and organic, nocturnal and colourful, a world of symbiosis and transfer, unique to the dreamlike aesthetics of Surrealism whose celebrated manifesto André Breton had published in 1924. Le Plongeur was exhibited at the Prague City gallery in 2000, on the occasion of the first retrospective of the painter's work in the Czech capital since her exile to Paris in 1948.