MARIA HELENA VIEIRA DA SILVA | Le Chemin Perdu

Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris
Edouard Cournand Collection, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Paris, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Vieira da Silva, November - December 1960, n.p., no. 13, illustrated
Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle, Vieira da Silva, March - April 1961, n.p., no. 21, illustrated
São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna, VIème Biennal, September - December 1961, n.p., no. 78, illustrated
Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, XVIIIème Salon de Mai, May 1962, n.p., no. 163 (text)
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Vieira da Silva 1935-1969, September - November 1969, n.p., no. 50 (text)
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Vieira da Silva, Schilderijen 1935-1969, December 1969 - February 1970, n.p., no. 41 (text)
Oslo, Kunsternes Museum, Vieira da Silva, Malerei 1935-1969, February - March 1970, n.p., no. 41 (text)
Basel, Kunsthalle Basel, Vieira da Silva, April - May 1970, n.p., no. 36 (text)
Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Vieira da Silva, June - July 1970, p. 127, no. 143, illustrated

Dora Vallier, La Peinture de Vieira da Silva: Chemins d'Approche, Paris 1971, p. 180, illustrated
Antoine Terasse, L'univers de Vieira da Silva, Paris 1977, p. 66, illustrated
Jacques Lassaigne & Guy Weelen, Vieira da Silva, Paris 1978, p. 237, no. 271, illustrated in colour
Dora Vallier, Chemins d'Approche: Vieira da Silva, Paris 1982, p. 23, illustrated
René Huyghe, Les Signes du Temps l'Art Moderne, Paris 1985, p. 119, illustrated
Guy Weelen and Jean-François Jaeger, Vieira da Silva Catalogue Raisonné, Geneva 1994, p. 336, no. 1669, illustrated
Gisela Rosenthal, Vieira da Silva: The Quest for Unknown Space, Cologne 1988, p. 62, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is warmer and slightly lighter and brighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals some very fine networks of hairline drying cracks which appear to have been consolidated. Further close inspection reveals some wear and rubbing to the edges, which appears to have been caused by previous framing, and a few tiny and unobtrusive specks of associated loss that have been inpainted and fluoresce under ultraviolet light. No further restoration is apparent when examined 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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 1960, Le Chemin Perdu, is a wonderful example of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva’s intricate canvases, where perspective lines and vanishing points are skilfully placed at rhythmic intervals, forming a lattice of lines, overpainted by earthy washes of colour and punctuated by intensely coloured dabs of blue pigment. The present work was executed at the artist’s return to Paris after her exile to Brazil during the Second World War. It was during this period that Vieira da Silva went through an extraordinarily creative phase, her canvases growing both in size and complexity and her dexterity and understanding of perspective and its possibilities being completely mastered. It was precisely this understanding of the possibilities that lie within the picture plane that allowed the artist to eschew them in order to question their very relevance in modern painting. Indeed, in Le Chemin Perdu the painter chooses to overpaint parts of her carefully drawn background, erasing, staining and creating thousands of smaller compositions within a whole. The result is a vibrating composition that challenges the viewer, an effect that Vieira da Silva was always after. The artist explained how “I do not want people to remain passive, I want them to come and take part in the game, go for a walk, climb up, go down” (Maria Helena Vieira da Silva cited in: Gisela Rosenthal, Vieira da Silva 1908-1992, The Quest for Unknown Space, Cologne 1998, p. 71). Born in Lisbon in 1908, Vieira da Silva was only nineteen years old when she decided to go to Paris to pursue her passion; painting. In Paris she found the excitement she was after; art seemed to be in constant evolution and development, with new movements and –isms being created almost simultaneously. She discovered Picasso’s and Cezanne’s Cubism, where reality was augmented and rendered more palpable by introducing different views into the same picture plane. A study trip to Italy, where she saw the frescoes by the masters of the Trecento and Quattrocento allowed her to fully understand the principles she was about to shatter herself. From then onwards the artist developed her own visual language, where architectural landscapes teeming with energy perfectly encapsulated the Zeitgeist of the new century in what then was the world’s artistic capital.

In Le Chamin Perdu Vieira da Silva has delicately constructed a grid like pattern that unfolds across the canvas, echoing an aerial view of a city street plan. Over the laborious composition the artist has then re-worked the surface, slowly obliterating fragments by subtraction and by overpainting, meticulously creating a landscape of the mind. The artist dexterously allows the viewer to glimpse into her own creative process, when observing the present work it is inevitable to imagine how it was created. As the artist would explain: "In adding little stain after little stain, laboriously, like a bee, the picture makes itself. A picture should have its heart, its nervous system, its bones and its circulation. It should resemble a person in its movements" (Maria Helena Vieira da Silva cited in: Guy Weelen and Jean-François Jaeger, Vieira da Silva, Geneva 1993, p. 91).