Nicolas de Staël

Mr and Mrs Arnold Maremont, Winnetka 

Paul Rosenberg and Co., New York

Gimpel Fils Gallery, London (acquired from the above in April 1974)

Sale: Christie’s, London, Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, 29 June 1976, Lot 281

Adelaide Ross Stachelberg, New York

Sale: Christie’s, London, Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 3 December 1984, Lot 55 

Private Collection, New York

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner 

Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection; and Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum, Nicolas de Staël in America, 1990, p. 79, no. 17, illustrated in colour

André Chastel, Ed., Nicolas de Staël Catalogue Raisonné des Peintres, Paris 1968, p. 169, no. 299, illustrated

Françoise de Staël, Ed., Nicolas de Staël: Catalogue Raisonné de l’Oeuvre Peint, Neuchâtel 1997, p. 316, no. 321, illustrated

Condition: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is evidence of paint shrinkage and a few stable drying cracks to the darkest pigment. Close inspection reveals some unobtrusive wear to the extreme outer edges, some spots of which have been retouched. Very close inspection reveals a few hairline cracks towards the centre of the composition and in isolated places along the bottom edge, a couple of which fluoresce under ultraviolet light.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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Created at a time when Nicolas de Staël’s work was achieving growing international recognition, Composition displays the artist’s highly assured and utterly distinctive painterly language to superb effect. Encrusted with richly textured and impastoed striations of paint, the surface of the composition is imbued with an astonishing sensation of energy and dynamism, whilst the paint layer appears almost three-dimensional in its extraordinary depth of surface. Formed of a central grouping of quadratic shapes which appear to float over concentrated areas of pink, green and black, Composition is a magnificent exposition of de Staël’s aesthetic of the period, and reveals the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch masters, in particular Rembrandt, in its opulent painterly facture. Eliza E. Rathbone notes that de Staël was strongly influenced by certain art historical periods: “To a large extent de Staël saw his work in relation to the great art of the past – Rembrandt, Vermeer, Cézanne, Soutine, Matisse. De Staël studied the work of older masters both as a young man and throughout his years as an artist, from his frequent visits to the Louvre in the 1940s to his travels to Holland, Paris, Italy and finally in Spain, where he studied Velásquez and Goya…” (Eliza R. Rathbone in: Exhibition Catalogue, Washington D.C., The Phillips Collection (and travelling), Nicolas de Staël in America, 1990, p. 16). In its exquisite colouration and depth of impasto, Composition appears to draw together varying elements from these different artists' creative practices, yet re-interpreted and superbly re-imagined through de Staël’s unique painterly praxis.

Painted in 1951, Composition reveals the influence of an exhibition on the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna which de Staël had recently seen, and is arguably one of the most visually striking of a group of paintings which feature this highly distinctive segmentation into a block-like structure. Rathbone notes the importance of this series of works within de Staël’s mature artistic development: “Form as an evocation of mood or landscape is essentially banished from these works, which in their layering of hues suggest a search for subtle harmonies and variations on a theme, of point and counterpoint as in a piece of music” (ibid., p. 19). This concept of ‘musical harmonies’ seems particularly apposite in the case of the present work, not only in the choice of title but also in the methodical layering of compositional elements, which appears to echo the repeated segments of a musical quotation or theme. Music was an important influence on de Staël’s work of the early to mid-1950s, an interest which is reflected in the titles of other paintings from this period which include Nocturne (1950) and Fugue (1951-52), both in The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.  

Composition displays de Staël’s signature fusion of abstraction with figuration: the artist effectively reconciles two ostensibly opposing styles whilst hovering thrillingly on the cusp of both. De Staël discussed his belief that a painting should follow both stylistic schools equally: “I do not set up abstract painting in opposition to figurative. A painting should be both abstract and figurative: abstract to the extent that it is a flat surface, figurative to the extent that it is a representation of space” (Nicolas de Staël quoted in: ibid., p. 22). Throughout the 1940s de Staël had been hailed as the leading abstract artist of his generation, with his sensuously thick, impasto compositions earning him recognition as one of the leading figures of the École de Paris, who, in the aftermath of the Second World War, had found solace in the evocation of geometric form and pure colour on canvas. Yet de Staël’s evolution towards the resolution of seemingly aesthetic opposites differed from that of many of his French artistic counterparts of the period, such as Jean Fautrier: de Staël had worked in an overwhelmingly abstract idiom from an early stage of his career, whilst figural elements became increasingly discernible as he reached artistic maturity during the 1950s. Composition was created around the time of this significant aesthetic turning point, and thus stands as a powerful summation of the artist’s early style whilst simultaneously acknowledging the future direction of de Staël’s oeuvre.