尼古拉·德·斯塔埃爾

Jacques Dubourg, Paris

Private Collection, Paris

Private Collection, Switzerland

Galerie Beyeler, Basel

Collection Daniel Malingue, Paris

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner 

Berne, Kunsthalle Bern, Nicolas de Staël, 1957, n.p., no. 43 

Kassel, Museum Fridericianum, Documenta II, Kunst nach 1945, 1959, p. 380, no. 18, illustrated 

Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover; and Hamburg, Kunstverein Hamburg, Nicolas de Staël, 1959-60, n.p., no. 32 

Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Pittori d’oggi Francia-Italia, 1961, n.p., no. 240

Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Dix Ans d’Art Vivant 1945-55, 1966, n.p, no. 139

Geneva, Galerie Motte, Nicolas de Staël: 1914-1955, Peintures et Dessins, 1967, n.p., no. 19

Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Staël, 1972, p. 92, no. 45, illustrated

Zurich, Galerie Nathan, Nicolas de Staël: Gemälde und Zeichnungen, 1976-77, n.p., no. 12, illustrated

Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais; and London, Tate Gallery, Nicolas de Staël: Rétrospective, 1981, p. 78, no. 58, illustrated

Geneva, Galerie Daniel Malingue, Staël: Priorité Peinture, 1992, n.p., no. 8, illustrated in colour

Paris, Galerie Daniel Malingue, Hommage à Nicolas de Staël, 1992

Tokyo, Tobu Museum of Art; Kamakura, Museum of Modern Art; and Hiroshima, Museum of Art, Nicolas de Staël: 1944-1955, 1993, p. 69, no. 18, illustrated in colour

Paris, Galerie Daniel Malingue, Maîtres Impressionistes et Modernes, 1994, n.p., no. 20, illustrated in colour 

Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Nicolas de Staël: Retrospektive, 1994, p. 85, no. 52, illustrated in colour

Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Nicolas de Staël, 1995, p. 69, no. 18, illustrated in colour

Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Nicolas de Staël, 2003, p. 138, no. 110, illustrated in colour

Linz, Kentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Paris 1945-1965: Metropole der Kunst, Jahrzehnte des Aufbruchs, Malerei – Plastik – Grafik – Fotografie, 2003-04, p. 267, illustrated in colour 

Barcelona, Fundación Caixa Catalunya, Nicolas de Staël : 1914-1955, 2007, p. 87, illustrated in colour 

Kristian Sotriffer, ‘Gibt es eine abendländische Kalligraphie’, Alte und Moderne Kunst, Vienna, Vol. 5, No. 3, March 1960, p. 17, no. 4, illustrated

Jacques Dubourg and Françoise de Staël, Ed., Nicolas de Staël: Lettres, Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures, Paris 1968, p. 197, no. 396, illustrated

André Chastel, Staël: l'artiste et l'oeuvre, Paris 1972, p. 92, no. 45, illustrated

Agnès Cazenave, ‘Nicolas de Staël’, La Vie, 19 June 1981, pp. 48-49, illustrated in colour

René Micha, ‘Trois Maîtres: Dufy et de Staël à Paris; Kokoschka à Londres’, Art International, Lugano, No. 9-10, August 1981, p. 158, illustrated in colour

Michael Brenson, ‘Report from Paris, de Staël in Retrospect’, Art in America, Vol. 69, No. 10, December 1981, p. 39, illustrated in colour

Wolfgang Sauré, ‘Pariser Kunstereignisse Paris – Paris 1937-1957; Nicolas de Staël’, Das Kunstwerk, Stuttgart, Vol. 34, No. 5, 1981, p. 73, illustrated

Françoise de Staël, Ed., Nicolas de Staël: Catalogue Raisonné de l’Oeuvre Peint, Neuchâtel 1997, p. 342, no. 400, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals some stable hairline cracks to the white/blue pigment in the upper right corner and some paint shrinkage to the black arm of the figure, which fluoresces under ultra violet light. Inspection under ultra violet light reveals small intermittent retouchings to the left of the top edge, to the lower right edge, towards the right of the lower edge, and one small speck of retouching to the left of the lower edge.
"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."

On 26 March 1952 Nicolas de Staël and his wife went to see France play Sweden at Parc des Princes in Paris – one of the first times a football match had been played in the evening under the bright glare of floodlights. De Staël was entirely overcome by the spectacle. He was entranced by the shimmering green grass, the vivacious blues, reds, yellows and blacks of the players’ outfits and the dazzling whites of the lights, the ball and the goals. Consumed by this rich cacophony of colour, de Staël spent that night awake in his studio translating this vivid experience onto a canvas that he christened Parc des Princes. In the days following he created a total of twenty five musings on the subject, which are characterised by an astonishing vivacity and brilliant, pure tones and are housed in celebrated international collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Musée des Beaux Arts, Dijon; and the Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas. Created in a 65 by 81cm. format, Footballeurs is the fourth largest work, and the first ever to appear at auction, from what is arguably the most important series of de Staël’s illustrious career; a series that came to define and shape his entire mature artistic output.

In the years leading up to the decisive 1952 football match, de Staël had become increasingly frustrated by the apparent gulf between abstraction and figuration in his work. Firmly entrenched in the strand of Modernism that sought to readdress the past in order to move forward from it, de Staël came to realise that it was only by surrendering traditional subject matter to the Modernist dictum of painting-as-painting, (painting which is primarily a play of forms and colours on a flat canvas) that his work could continue to be both current and alive. The little tiles of colour that characterised the artist’s work in 1951 slowly evolved bit by bit into figurative suggestions and still lifes to evince a spontaneous marriage with the exterior world. Representations of wine bottles and apples organically took their place in this formal trajectory and his work thus became more complex and contradictory. As the artist explained, “I am not setting abstract painting against figurative painting. 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: Julien Alvard and Roger van Gindertaël, Témoignages pour l’art abstrait, Paris 1952, n.p.). The event that was to provide the catalyst for this monumental change in artistic direction was the most casual of occurrences: a football match.

Although writing to his dear friend, the poet René Char, many days after the game, de Staël’s enthusiasm for the event had not faded: “My dear René, Thank you for your note, you are an angel, just like the boys who play in the Parc des Princes each evening… I think of you often. When you come back we will go and watch some matches together. They are marvellous. No one there is playing to win, except in rare moments of nervousness which cut you to the quick. On the red or blue field, between earth and sky, a ton of muscle flies in abandon, forgetting itself entirely in the paradoxical concentration that this requires. What joy René, what joy! Anyway I’ve put the whole French and Swedish teams to work, and a bit of progress starts to be made. If I were to find a space as big as the Rue Gauget, I would set off on two hundred small canvases so that their colour could blare like the posters on the motorway out of Paris… Yours, Nicola (Nicolas de Staël, ‘Letter to René Char, 10 April 1952’, cited in: Françoise de Staël, Ed., Nicolas de Staël: Catalogue Raisonné de l’Oeuvre Peint, Neuchâtel 1997, p. 975). The tumultuous flurry of colour and movement recalled in this famous letter resonated profoundly with the artist. Indeed, critic Denys Sutton goes as far as to say that the football match had the same effect on de Staël “as the Circus had on Lautrec and Degas” (Denys Sutton, ‘Nicolas de Staël’, 1956, in: Exhibition Catalogue, Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, (and travelling), Nicolas de Staël, 1981, p. 14).

Just as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s visits to the Cirque Fernando in the late 1880s inspired a colourful, chaotic world, de Staël’s excursion to Parc des Princes prompted a group of works that exploded with an infectious energy, vitality and colour. Like no other series before, de Staël flattened the pictorial space so that figures were treated as an injection of vibrantly coloured, animated touches, pitted against the flat ground. As such, unbridled movement was played against absolute stillness, dazzling whites, reds, blues and purples against the darkest night. As the extreme forces of stasis threaten to engulf the great blocks of colour the painting acquires all the overwhelming passion and fatalism experienced in Greek tragedy. As Douglas Cooper points out “this series of footballers is more ambitious and vital than anything de Staël has achieved before. What’s more they reveal his innate gift as a striking and effective colourist, being executed in a series of strong reds and blues, from light to dark, blended with black and white” (Douglas Cooper, Nicolas de Staël, London 1961, p. 51). 

The fertility of 1952 came to leave an indelible mark on all de Staël’s future works. Thereon after, until his tragic and untimely death in 1955, he rejected pure abstraction in favour of paintings that depicted musical performers, still lifes and landscapes amongst other subjects, which emerged from lyrical, semi-abstracted patterns. De Staël's magisterial capacity to espouse abstraction and figuration into a wholly innovative communion bespeaks the mystery of the medium that was to influence the masters of the later 1950s and beyond such as Frank Auerbach. Akin to Auerbach, de Staël’s readiness to allow the paint to announce its plastic qualities whilst also endowing it with a figurative function aligns his practice with the painterly struggle between figuration and abstraction that is prevalent in the works of post-modernist painters such as Gerhard Richter. Perfectly dramatising de Staël’s late and ambiguous approach to both figuration and abstraction, Footballeurs is the ultimate encapsulation of the artist’s aesthetic aims. In this series de Staël finally reached the plateau to which he had been ceaselessly striving.