Albert Marquet

Studio of the artist
Madame Albert Marquet (widow of the artist)
Private Collection, France (acquired after 1975)

Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts & Metz, Musée de la Ville, Albert Marquet, 1959, no. 55
Nice, Palais de la Méditerranée, Rétrospective des œuvres de Marquet, 1967, no. 71
New York, Wildenstein, Albert Marquet. A Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Hospitality Committee of the United Nations, 1971, no. 65
London, Wildenstein, Albert Marquet, 1972, no. 43
Tokyo & Osaka, Grands Magasins Takashimaya, Art français moderne. De l’impressionnisme à Picasso, 1973, no. 50
Bordeaux, Galerie des Beaux-Arts & Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Albert Marquet, 1975-76, no. 89 bis
Munich, Städtische Galerien im Lenbachaus, Albert Marquet, 1976, no. 65
Saint-Tropez, L'Annonciade, musée de Saint Tropez, Albert Marquet, Journal de bord en Méditerranée, 2001, n.n.

Francis Jourdain, Albert Marquet, Paris, 1959, p. 144
Marcelle Marquet, Marquet, voyages, Lausanne, 1968, illustrated p. 27
Marion Vidal-Bué, Alger et ses peintres, 1930-1960, Paris, 2000, illustrated p. 211 
Jean-Claude Martinet & Guy Wildenstein, Marquet, L'Afrique du Nord, Catalogue de l'œuvre peint, Paris, 2001, no. I-456, illustrated p. 339

The canvas is unlined. Close examination reveals some very minor hairline craquelure in the white pigments. There is no evidence of retouching under UV light. This work is in excellent original condition.
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The threat represented by the rise of Nazism led Marquet and his wife to choose exile and leave the Paris area after having signed a petition protesting against the Third Reich. The couple decided to head to the South of France before travelling to Algeria. In 1941, they moved in Djenan Sidi Saïd, a house on the hills surrounding Algiers, whose name literally translates as “the garden of the happy lord”. This house was to be their haven and an inspiration for the artist during the years that followed.

Marcelle Marquet described the garden whose every detail her husband relished depicting in the following terms: “acanthus with large leaves covered the alley that we took to get to the old stairway made of slightly separated rocks and surrounded by large blond and green agaves with triumphant curves. This led to a flowered terrace from which we could see the city’s old neighbourhood and the sea, and all around, more acanthus, flowerbeds of white daisies, of vigorous geraniums covering the walls, hedges of arums, ivy and wisteria that should be contained, pink trees whose name we didn't know, all kind of fruit-trees and, guarding all this abundance and promise, a few proud and dark cypresses. […] The house had a perfectly situated and isolated studio. Marquet even found an easel and a few small sheets of cardboard, a gift from the previous owner, also an artist during her lifetime, apparently an American […]” (Marquet. Voyages, Lausanne, 1968, p. 10).

Marquet’s paintings depicting Algiers and its surrounding leave you with a sense of serenity, in poignant contrast with the troubled period that the artist was experiencing during his enforced exile. By skillfully representing all that is everlasting and tangible in nature, Marquet strives, through the depiction of this garden, to convey the essence of all gardens, using a condensed language of simplified lines and playing with contrasting colour effects.