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FEMALE NUDE SEEN FROM BEHIND

FEMALE NUDE SEEN FROM BEHIND

40 by 60,5 cm.

signed

oil on canvas

The present lot will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist's work, currently being prepared by the Dutch Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague

NOTE

Jan Sluijters (1881-1957) was born in Den Bosch and moved at the age of twelve to Amster­dam, where he followed lessons at the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten, at the same time as Leo Gestel. In 1904 he won the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to travel to Italy, Spain and Paris, where he got acquainted with fauvism. Sluijters is, just like his friends Gestel, Mondriaan and Van Dongen, of a great significance to de Dutch art history, because he found connection to the major artistic movements in Europe and broke with the often dim, virtuous and apathetic art of the 19^th century Dutch school. From the years 1910-1920, the works of Sluijters are predominantly of a expressionist character, with sometimes tendencies to futurism and cubism.

Inspired by the physical beauty of women, a central and dominant place in the oeuvre of Sluijters is occupied by the female nude, with a subtle or -- as he was not especially interested in pleasing his public nor afraid of provoking the plain bourgeois mentality -- even obvious sensuality. In after years, this unrestrained sensuality was the most distinguishing mark of his nudes and often led to negative reactions of art critics and even refusals of galleries and museums to expose his works. With the casual and natural elegance of the women he depicted, Sluijters knew to create magnificent compositions, like this Sleeping Nude, executed in the 1940's. Looking on to this painting, it looks, maybe because of the small and blurred figure in the background, as if the dormant woman is dreaming, and one could almost imagine being present right in her dream.