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Artist or Maker: James Ensor (1860-1949)

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Description: Chou rouge et masques
signed 'Ensor' (lower right)
oil on canvas
25 3/4 x 32 1/8 in. (65.5 x 81.5 cm.)
Painted circa 1925-1930

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Provenance: Sam Salz, Paris and New York.
Galerie Le Centaure, Brussels.
Walter Schwarzenberg, Brussels; his sale, Galerie Georges Giroux, Brussels, 1 February 1932, lot 85.
Mrs Wilhelm Barth-Vidal, Basel.
Kunsthalle, Basel (inventory no. 258.ST.O.27), a gift from the above in 1934.
Württemberg Kunstverein, Württemberg (no. 243), on loan from the above.

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Exhibited: Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, L'Art vivant en Europe, April - May 1931, no. 154.
London, Leicester Galleries, Paintings, drawings and etchings by James Ensor, June - July 1936, no. 85.
Basel, Kunsthalle, James Ensor, June - August 1963, no. 85; this exhibition later travelled to Münster, Landesmuseum, August - September 1963.
Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Ensor, ein Maler aus der späten 19 Jahrhundert, March - May 1972, no. 65.
London, Hayward Gallery, Objects of Desire, The Modern Still Life, October 1997 - January 1998; this exhibition later travelled to New York, Museum of Modern Art, May - August 1997.
Aargau, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Das goldene Gedächnis der Malerei, August - November 2000.

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Published: X. Tricot, James Ensor, Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, vol. II, 1902-1941, Antwerp, 1992, no. 526 (illustrated p. 392).

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Notes: PROPERTY OF THE BASLER KUNSTVEREIN, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE RENOVATION OF THE KUNSTHALLE BASEL, SWITZERLAND

'Hounded by those on my tail,' wrote Ensor, 'I joyfully took refuge in the land of the fools where the mask, with its violence, its brightness and brilliance, reigns supreme. The mask meant to me: freshness of colour, extravagant decoration, wild generous gestures, strident expressions, exquisite turbulence' (quoted in C. Brown (intro.), exh. cat., James Ensor - Theatre of Masks, London, 1997, p. 12).

In Chou rouge et masques Ensor assembles his typically irreverent cast of characters like a hissing chorus around a humble Flemish still-life of fruit, four wild flowers and a colossal red cabbage. In so doing, two perennial themes of his art - the gaudy, grotesque carnival masks and the commonplace clutter of his home and studio - are conflated in one work, a bewitching riot of abundant colour and tumbling form.

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