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Nature morte signed 'Vlaminck' (lower left) oil on canvas 211/4 x 25 7/8in. (54 x 65.7cm.) Painted in 1906 PROVENANCE Ambroise Vollard, Paris. Mrs H. Prytek, Long Island, New York. Mr and Mrs Peter A. Rubel, Cos Cob, Connecticut. Perls Galleries, New York (5127 and 6707). Mr and Mrs Arnold Askin, New York, by whom purchased from the above in 1964. Galerie Beyeler, Basle (11651), from whom purchased by the present owner. LITERATURE M. Sauvage, Vlaminck: sa vie et son message, Geneva, 1956, no. 51 (illustrated). EXHIBITION Chicago, The Arts Club of Chicago, Les Fauves, January-February 1956, no. 24. New York, Perls Galleries, MaŒtres de la premiŠre g‚n‚ration du vingtiŠme si‚cle, A group of paintings in the collection of Peter and Elizabeth Rubel, March-April 1957, no. 8 (illustrated); this exhibition later travelled to several cities in the United States. Dallas, Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, Les Fauves, January-March 1959. Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut collects. New York, The Museum of Modern Art (on loan). New York, Perls Galleries, Vlaminck - His Fauve Period, 1903-1907, April-May 1968, no. 26 (illustrated p. 33). NOTES In 1901, having met the previous year, Andr‚ Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck shared a studio in an abandoned restaurant called 'La Venneaux' on the Isle de Chatou in Paris. A visit to Van Gogh's exhibition at Bernheim-Jeune in 1901 proved a turning point in both of their careers. Vlaminck recalled: 'in him I found some of my own aspirations... I came out of this retrospective exhibition shaken to the core... I felt like crying... my soul was overwhelmed by joy and despair.' (M. Giry, Fauvism, Origins and Development, New York, 1982, p. 82). However, as John Elderfield has pointed out, 'it was actually only after the second large retrospective exhibition of Van Gogh's work at the Salon des Ind‚pendants in the spring of 1905, and after Vlaminck had seen the Fauve paintings Matisse and Derain produced during the summer of 1905 in Collioure, that he followed the example of the three artists and took the final step towards embracing the Fauve style' (J. Elderfield, Twentieth Century Modern Masters, the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, Exh. cat., New York, 1989, p. 75.) Having no formal training as an artist, Vlaminck prided himself on painting in an unschooled and unrestrained manner. Unlike Derain he had no interest in copying the earlier masters in museums and declared 'Instinct is the foundation of art. I try to paint with my heart and my guts'. (W. Haftmann, Painting in the Twentieth Century, vol. I, New York, 1965, p. 73.). Vlaminck revelled in an attitude of revolt and contempt for everything that involved learning or reason. He stated 'I knew neither jealousy nor hate but was possessed by rage to recreate a new world, the world which my eyes perceived, a world all to myself' (J. Rewald, Vlaminck, his Fauve Period, Exh. cat., New York, p.2.) Before April 1906, when Vollard purchased Vlaminck's existing stock of paintings and his future output, the artist was only able to paint during rare moments of leisure. This would explain why he found it easier, especially in the winter, to paint interiors and still-lifes. Vlaminck much admired Van Gogh's late expressive style and he emulated his directional brushstrokes as well as the intuitive application of heightened palette. 'I heightened all the tones', he wrote later, 'I transposed into an orchestration of pure colours all the feelings of which I was conscious. I was a barbarian, tender and full of violence. I translated by instinct, without any method, not merely an artistic truth but above all a human one'. Vlaminck also exaggerated the tilted and flattened perspective of Van Gogh to the point where contours are indicated only by patches of bright colour. During the feverish output of these years, whenever Vlaminck achieved, as with this work, 'a complete balance of purpose and expression...the vigorous qualities of his paintings are like the triumphant sound of trumpets' (J. Rewald, Modern Masters, Manet to Matisse, Exh. cat., New York, 1975, p. 116.).