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1871-1958
TÊTE DE CLOWN

measurements
15 5/8 by 10 in.

alternate measurements
40.5 by 26.5 cm

Painted circa 1953-56.

Signed G Rouault (upper left)

Oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Perls Galleries, New York (as dating from 1952 and titled Domingo)

LITERATURE

Bernard Dorival and Isabelle Rouault, Rouault, L'Oeuvre peint, Monte Carlo, 1988, no. 2413, illustrated p. 249

NOTE

Edward Alden Jewell states the following about the early years of Rouault's artistic production, "Though not 'officially' a Fauve, Rouault showed with the group and became popularly identified with it. Like that of the Fauves, Rouault's was in those days an art of violent expressionism. And like theirs it represented a revolt against the stuffy academic standards of the day. But Rouault also walked apart. For one thing, he differed from the Fauves in that his art of that period was not decorative. Instead, it was passionately dedicated, as the art of the Fauves in the main was not, to pregnant social issues (E.A. Jewell, Rouault, Hyperion, London, 1947, p. 8).

Jewell continues, "From about 1917 onward the principal paint medium is oil. And when Rouault elects this medium he does so not because it is "heavier," but simply because it lends itself to the creation of textures and effects not otherwise to be contrived. The loaded brush dragged across a specified area can pile up rich plump sonorities, as may be observed in that memorable masterpiece, The Old King, or in the Wounded Clown" (op. cit., p. 11).

"Often the piling up of paint is done, actually, in layers; for Rouault has long made it a practice to hold on to paintings over a considerable stretch of years, turning back to them repeatedly, brush in hand. This procedure makes it in many cases difficult or quite impossible to date work, even work that bears a hallmark of one period rather than of another (op. cit., p. 11).

In the present work, a plethora of layers of pigment can be seen in the thickly applied paints. The build-up of the impasto literally creates a three-dimensional work that had to have taken many years to complete. Deep recesses are discernible by the delineation of the clown's hat, his cheeks, and especially his collar and blouse. Tête de clown can be characterized as Rouault's characteristic long-term re-working of his canvases.

Fig. 1 Georges Rouault in his studio, circa 1955