Maria Helena Vieira da Silva

Galerie Jean Bouchet, Paris
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Vieira da Silva - Germaine Richier, 1955, no.6
Lisbon, Galeria São Mamede, Vieira da Silva, 1970, p. 55, no. 21, illustrated
Lisbon, Galeria Nasoni, Vieira da Silva, 1992, no. 19, illustrated

Guy Weelen and Jean-François Jaeger, Vieira da Silva: Catalogue Raisonné, Geneva 1994, p. 252, no. 1274, illustrated

Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is lighter in the original. Condition: This work is in good condition. There is wear along the edges and to all four corner tips, with associated specks of paint loss. Close inspection reveals some hairline cracks to the thinner areas of paint. There is a loss towards the centre of the left edge, which is visible in the catalogue illustration. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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Vieira da Silva is known for pursuing her own practice within the history of modern art; influenced less by her famed contemporaries and more by a diverse range of subjects such as Portuguese mosaics and the urban grids of the numerous cities in which she lived. She also took influence from the exploration of perspective by the Old Master painters, eventually concluding that the alteration of space changes gradually throughout the history of art and that modern art could be explained by this concept.

Here, the title Les Terrasses transforms the painting that is at first seemingly abstract, with peppered deep blue matrices emerging from off-white hazy patches of pigment, into a misty cityscape with plumes of cloud or chimney smoke obscuring fragments of terraced houses. Vieira’s 1950s painting focused predominantly on a postwar subdued city of her adopted home in Paris. Beneath what seems a haphazard composition, as with many of her works from this period, is an underlining structure and logic that comes to fruition. She herself said that each work was: “a path, but this path can branch into three paths or four paths or turn into a dead end.” (Maria Helena Vieira da Silva quoted in: G. Rosenthal, Vieira da Silva, 1908-1922: The Quest for Unknown Space, Cologne 1998, p. 75). This approach stemmed from da Silva’s natural inclination towards isolation; viewing herself as an outsider, she was able to evolve her artwork with a supreme focus, producing work that was unlike anything else in the twentieth century. Les Terrasses is an emotive and highly thoughtful painting whose importance was re-emphasised by its inclusion in an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amesterdam with Germaine Richier, in the same year as its execution.