Clown violoniste
Oil on canvas, signed upper right
100 x 59 cm
39 3/8 x 23 1/4 in.
We thank the Gen Paul Committee for including this work in its documentation.
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Dubaï
GEN PAUL
Born 1895 in Paris, Eugène Paul, known as Gen Paul, was a French Expressionist painter, illustrator, engraver and lithographer who first trained to build decorative furniture. During the First World War, he was seriously wounded twice and lost a leg. In 1934, he was officially recognised for his contributions to French art and received the Légion d'honneur. During the Second World War, he was close to Otto Abetz and collaborationist and anti-Semitic circles, but escaped the post-war purge. He became friends with Louis-Ferdinand Céline and, although self-taught, was described as the "painter of Montmartre". The dynamism and movement in his paintings led some to deem him the forerunner of 1950s Abstract Expressionism.
Clown violoniste reveals the cubist and constructivist influences which inspired Gen Paul; from the multisided face, as the way of Picasso, to the colours layout of Cézanne. Devoided of any blank spaces, which traduced the turmoil of Corrida and Quatuor à cordes, for example, the bright tints stand out, all the more as they are complementary. The green tints of the suit answer thus to the reds of the body and the background, seeming to reveal the ardour of the musician and the animation of a public, which can be guessed in the background. One of Gen Paul's talents is actually to express the own movement and expression of each instrumentalist. "My musicien, I don't realise him objectively, I play with him". The oversized and deconstructed fingers traduce the agility of the hand on the archer, the face reveals a passionate and enjoyed side, then an other, melancholic, probably like the melody played. Likewise, the oversized angles of the shoulders seem to announce the liveliness and the vivacity o
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