The "wild beasts" : Fauvism and its affinities

The "wild beasts" : Fauvism and its affinitiesThe "wild beasts" : Fauvism and itsThe "wild beasts" : Fauvism and its affinitiesaffinities John ElderfieldJohn Elderfield
Author Elderfield, John
Date 1976
Publisher The Museum of Modern Art: Distributed by Oxford University Press
ISBN 087070639X, 0870706381
Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2470
The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history—from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists.
© 2017 The Museum of Modern ArtMoMA
The "Wild Beasts"
and Its Affinities
Distributed by Oxford University Press, New York, Toronto
This book and the exhibition it accompanies have been
organized by The Museum of Modern Art and made pos
sible with the generous support of SCM Corporation and
the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., a
Federal agency.
SCHEDULE OF THE EXHIBITION
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 26-June 1, 1976
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 29- August 15, 1976
The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, September 11-October 31,
1976
All rights reserved
Clothbound ISBN 0-87070-639-X
Paperbound ISBN 0-87070-638-1
Printed by General Offset, Inc., New York, N.Y.
Bound by Sendor Bindery, New York, N.Y.
The Museum of Modern Art
11 Wfest 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019
Printed in the United States of America
Frontispiece
Matisse: Pastoral. 1906. Oil, 18 Vs x 213/4". Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
Cover
(front left) Matisse: Portrait of Derain. 1905. Oil, 15Vs x llVs". The
Trustees of The Tate Gallery, London
(front right ) Derain: Portrait of Matisse. 1905. Oil, 18La x 133/4". The
Trustees of The Tate Gallery, London
(back left) Matisse: Portrait of Marquet. 1905-06. Oil on panel,
16 Vi x 1214". Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
(back right) Vlaminck: Portrait of Derain. 1905. Oil, 103/4 x 834".
Collection Mr. and Mrs. Jacques Gelman, Mexico City
Acknowledgments 7
The Fauvist World 49
Postscript: Fauvism and Its Inheritance 141
Notes 149
Bibliography 161
Acknowledgments
This book is published on the occasion of an exhibition of
Fauvist art at The Museum of Modern Art. As author of
the book and director of the exhibition, I am obliged to
many individuals and organizations for their generosity and
assistance in bringing this project to fruition. Among the schol
ars who have been helpful in elucidating historical questions,
my thanks go especially to Marcel Giry, John Golding, Michel
Hoog, Michel Kellermann, John Rewald, Pierre Schneider, and
Sarah Whitfield; and also to Ellen C. Oppler, whose own exam
ination of Fauvism was particularly valuable to the present
author. For additional information and assistance, I am grateful
to Jack Cowart, Gaston Diehl, Pierre Georgel, Maurice Jardot,
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Maurice Laffaille.
On behalf of the Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art,
together with the Trustees of the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art and of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, where
the exhibition is subsequently to be shown, we are deeply grate
ful to the SCM Corporation and to the National Endowment for
the Arts, which have provided significant funds to make this
major exhibition possible. Its success has depended upon the
generosity of the owners of key works who have lent their pic
tures to the exhibition knowing that they would thus be deprived
of them for many months. In addition to nine important lenders
who wish to remain anonymous, our deepest thanks are due to
these owners of works included in the exhibition:
Mrs. John A. Beck; Mrs. Harry Lynde Bradley; M. Boris J. Fize;
Mr. and Mrs. Jacques Gelman; Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Hutton; Mr.
Charles Lachman; M. Pierre Levy; Mme Lucile Manguin; M.
Andre Martinais; Mr. and Mrs. William S. Paley; Mr. and Mrs.
Gifford Phillips; Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller; Mr. and Mrs.
Norbert Schimmel; Mrs. Evelyn Sharp; Mrs. Bertram Smith; Mr.
and Mrs. Nathan Smooke; Miss Kate Steichen; Dr. Jean Valtat;
Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney; The Baltimore Museum of Art;
Musee des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux; The Brooklyn Museum; The Art
Institute of Chicago; The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth;
Musee d'Art et d'Fiistoire, Geneva; The Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston; The Tate Gallery, London: The Milwaukee Art Center;
Musee Matisse, Cimiez, Nice; Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo; Centre
National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou. Musee National
d'Art Moderne, Paris; Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris;
Musee de l'Annonciade, Saint-Tropez; San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art; St. Louis Art Museum; Musee d'Art Moderne, Stras
bourg; The Museum of Modern Art, Tehran; The Bridgestone
Museum of Art, Tokyo; Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna;
Galerie Beyeler, Basel; Acquavella Galleries, New York; Perls
Galleries, New York; Galerie Alex Maguy, Paris.
This exhibition is the first to benefit from The Museum of
Modern Art's formal agreement with the French government,
providing for the reciprocal loans of works of art. I am particu
larly indebted to Pontus Hulten and Germain Viatte for the
cooperation of the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges
Pompidou; and to Hubert Landais, Inspecteur General des Musees
de France, for facilitating loans from other French museums.
For their support of this project my thanks go to the mayors of
Bordeaux, Le Havre, Nice, Strasbourg, and particularly Saint-
Tropez, where Alain Mousseigne, Curator of the Musee de
l'Annonciade, made special concessions so that important works
could appear in the exhibition.
This exhibition is also the first occasion on which The Museum
of Modern Art has had the pleasure of cooperating with the
recently founded Museum of Modern Art, Tehran. His Excellency
Karim Pasha Bahadori, head of the Private Cabinet of Her Im
perial Majesty the Shahbanou of Iran, has made this cooperation
possible. Among other museum colleagues, Sir Norman Reid,
Michael Compton, and Judith Jeffreys of The Tate Gallery, London,
and Thomas L. Freudenheim and Brenda Richardson of the Balti
more Museum of Art have made special arrangements so that their
paintings could be in the exhibition. The directors of the partici
pating museums, Henry Hopkins of the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art and Richard F. Brown of the Kimbell Art Museum,
have taken a keen interest in the exhibition as it has developed.
I am also indebted to the following institutions for their
assistance and interest in this project: The Norton Simon Foun
dation; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Musee de Peinture et de Sculp
ture, Grenoble; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; Staatsgalerie,
Stuttgart.
For their assistance in tracing specific works, I am grateful to
L'Association pour la Diffusion des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques,
Ann Allbeury, Douglas Cooper, Frangois Daulte, Dolly van
Dongen, Lucile Manguin, Pierre Matisse, Robert Schmit, S.
Martin Summers, Maurice Tuchman, Miles Vlaminck, Charles
Zadok, and especially to Ernst Beyeler, Leonard Hutton, and
Klaus Perls. Monique Barbier, Frangoise Cachin-Nora, Bereshteh
Daftari, and particularly Richard Wattenmaker were of invalu
able assistance in mediating certain important loan requests.
Besides the lenders themselves, among those who have gone to
much trouble making photographs or information available are
Mme Abdulhak, Knut Bert, Olive Bragazzi, Oscar Ghez, Charles
Jaggli-Hahnloser, Alex Maguy, Thomas P. Lee, Magne Malmanger,
John Neff, Katherine Ritchie, Angelica Rudenstein, Helene Seckel,
KarenTsujimoto, Dina Vierny, and E. L. L. de Wilde.
An exhibition and book of this order can only be achieved
7
with the cooperation of an expert staff. Many members of the
Museum's staff have worked under tremendous pressure in order
to realize this project in a very short time. Principal among them
has been Elizabeth Streibert, who vigorously coordinated mat
ters relating to loans and dispatched numerous other tasks
associated with the publication; her contribution has been cru
cial to the project's success. Judith Cousins Di Meo worked as
Researcher for the project, gathering documentation early in its
development, and was an enthusiastic and invaluable helper
throughout. Bonnie Nielson typed the manuscript of the book,
and shared with Ruth Priever and Kathy Martin the considerable
secretarial work involved. Inga Forslund prepared a compre
hensive bibliography on Fauvism of which a shortened version
is published here.
Richard Palmer, Coordinator of Exhibitions. Jack Limpert medi
ated the funding of the exhibition. Monique Beudert of the
Registrar's Department overcame the difficulties in assembling
works of art from many different sources. Jean Volkmer and
Anny Eder Aviram of the Department of Conservation worked
to restore some key paintings before they could be exhibited.
Alicia Legg, Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture, gra
ciously consented to advise and assist in the installation of the
exhibition. To these, and to all of my colleagues in the Depart
ment of Painting and Sculpture, who furthered my work in
numerous ways, go my deepest thanks.
It has been a very great pleasure to work with Mary Lea Bandy,
who perceptively edited the text of this book, with the expert
assistance of Susan Wolf. Fred Myers, working against an im
minent deadline, was responsible for its handsome design, and
Jack Doenias saw through the printing of the color plates and
the general production of the book. Richard L. Tooke of the
Department of Rights and Reproductions and Frances Keech,
Permissions Editor, both helped to bring it into being.
Finally my thanks go to Richard Oldenburg, Director of The
Museum of Modern Art, for both his enthusiastic support of this
project and his encouragement throughout its development,
and especially to William Rubin, Director of the Department of
Painting and Sculpture, who helped to arrange crucial loans for
the exhibition and carefully read the manuscript of the book,
making a number of important suggestions that are incorpo
rated in the text. His advice and assistance have extended to
every aspect of this project, and are very warmly appreciated.
J.E.
8
The following list is divided into two sections. The first
is a listing of works in chronological order by each of the
Fauve artists. Where two or more works are dated to
the same year, they are listed alphabetically within that year.
The second section lists works by other artists, alphabetized by
name of artist. Page numbers with an asterisk indicate works
reproduced in color.
L'Estaque. 1906 89
The Little Bay at La Ciotat. 1907 89
Seated Nude. 1907 129
Grand Nu. 1907-08 129
CHARLES CAMOIN
Mme Matisse Doing Needlework. 1905 42
ANDRE DERAIN
Self-Portrait with Soft Hat. 1904 37
Still Life. 1904 32
Study for LAge d'or. ca. 1904 104
The Bridge at Le Pecq. 1904-05 38
The Old Tree. 1904-05 70
Big Ben. 1905 39
Collioure (The White Horse). 1905 50
Composition (LAge d'or). 1905 203
Effects of Sunlight on the Water. 1905 39
Fishermen at Collioure. 1905 50
The Mountains, Collioure. 1905 47*
Portrait of Matisse. 1905 14
Portrait of Matisse. 1905 26 Portrait of Vlaminck. 1905 25
The River Seine at Chatou. 1905 72
View of Collioure. 1905 50
Woman with a Shawl. 1905 42
Bacchic Dance. 1906 206
The Dance. 1906 225*
Dancer at the "Rat Mort" (Woman in a Chemise). 1906 69
L'Estaque. 1906 84
The Pool of London. 1906 80
Regent Street. 1906 45*
Seine Barges. 1906 82
Three Trees, L'Estaque. 1906 86
The Turning Road, L'Estaque. 1906 224*
Carved panels for bed. ca. 1906-07 207
Three Figures Seated on the Grass. 1906-07 120
Bathers. 1907 226*
Standing Figure. 1907 111
Bathers. 1908 121
KEES VAN DONGEN
Reclining Nude. 1904-05 67 "Caoutchouc" at the Cirque Medrano. 1905 67
The Dancer, ca. 1905 67 The Hussar (Liverpool Night House). 1906 66
Portrait of Kahnweiler. 1907 66
Modfesko, Soprano Singer. 1908. 59*
RAOUL DUEY
FSte nautique. 1906 94*
Posters at Trouville. 1906 76
Sainte-Adresse—The Jetty. 1906 75
Street Decked with Flags at Le Havre. 1906 77
Sunshades (The Three Umbrellas). 1906 75
Trouville. 1906 75
Jeanne among Flowers. 1907 131
The Aperitif . 1908 232
9
EMILE-OTHON FRIESZ
Bathers. 1907 222
The Terrace. 1907 222
HENRI MANGUIN
The Fourteenth of July at Saint-Tropez, the Harbor . 1905 78
The Sleeping Girl. 1905 63
The Vale, Saint-Tropez. 1905 60*
The Cork Oaks. 1906 63
ALBERT MARQUET "Fauve" Nude. 1899 22
Portrait of Mme Matisse, ca. 1900 24
Dancing Couple. 1904 24
Mme Matisse Doing Needlework. 1905 42
The Beach at Sainte-Adresse. 1906 95*
The Fourteenth of July at Le Ha vre. 1906 76
Posters at Ttouville. 1906 76
HENRI MATISSE
The Invalid. 1899 29
Staff Li/e against the Light. 1899 20
Nude with Rose Slippers. 1900 22
Portrait of Lucien Guitry (as Cyrano). 1903 23
Standing Nude. 1903 23
The Terrace, Saint-Tropez. 1904 33
Luxe, calme et volupte. 1904-05 25* Marquet Painting a Nude. 1904-05 34
Marquet (or Manguin) Painting a Nude (formerly attributed to
Matisse). 1904-05 34
Interior at Collioure. 1905 56
La Japonaise: Woman beside the Water. 1905 42
Landscape ('Study for Bonheur de vivre). 1905 200
Landscape at Collioure ('Study for Bonheur de vivre). 1905 52
Landscape at Collioure. 1905 28*
The Open Window, Collioure. 1905 26*
Portrait of Derain. 1905 24
Portrait of Mme Matisse. 1905 54
View of Collioure with the Church. 1905 52
Woman before the Window. 1905 56
Woman with the Hat. 1905 53
Woman with the Parasol. 1905 52
Bonheur de vivre. 1905-06 200
Girl Reading (La Lecture). 1905-06 27*
Portrait of Marquet. 1905-06 25
Flowers. 1906 80
The Gypsy. 1906 64
"Oriental" Rugs. 1906 238
Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra). 1907 227
Blue Still Life. 1907 239
Brook with Aloes, Collioure. 1907 234
The Dance. 1907 208
Music (Sketch). 1907 237
Vase. ca. 1907 209
Le Luxe, II. 1908 235
Stiff Li/e in Venetian Red. 1908 239
Harmony in Red. 1909 240
Music. 1910 237
MAURICE DE VLAMINCK
Portrait of Derain. 1905 48*
Stiff Life. 1905 246
Stiff Li/e. 1905 247
Reclining Nude. 1905-06 67
The Bridge at Chatou. 1906 12
The Circus. 1906 57*
Landscape at Chatou. 1906 72
Landscape at Chatou. 1906 74
Tugboat at Chatou. 1906 83
Under the Bridge at Chatou. 1906 73
The Village. 1906 88
The Red Trees. 1906-07 87
Bathers. 1908 122
Henri-Edmond Cross: The Farm, Morning. 1892-93 100
Eugene Delacroix: Women of Algiers. 1834 108
Robert Delaunay: Self-Portrait. 1906 142
Robert Delaunay: Solar Disk (Landscape with Disk). 1906 40
Maurice Denis: Danse d'Alceste (Paysage de Tivoli). 1904 101
Paul Gauguin: Faa Iheihe. 1898 108
Vincent van Gogh: The Fourteenth of July. ca. 1886 78
Vincent van Gogh: Boats Moored along the Quay. 1888 83
Vincent van Gogh: Portrait of the Painter with a Pipe. 1889 54
Francisco Goya: Blindman's Buff. 1789 101
J.-A.-D. Ingres: L'Age d'or (detail). 1862 101
J.-A.-D. Ingres: The Tirkish Bath. 1862-63 105
Alexey Jawlensky: Still Life with Round Table. 1910 146
Wassily Kandinsky: Street in Murnau with Women. 1908 142
Wassily Kandinsky: White Sound. 1908 143
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Girl under a Japanese Umbrella. 1909
144
Albert Marque: Portrait of Jean Baigneres. 1905 44
Piet Mondrian: Windmill in Sunlight. 1908 142
Claude Monet: Rue Saint-Denis, Festival of the Thirtieth
of June. 1878 79
1903 39
Max Pechstein: Evening in the Dunes. 1911 145
Pablo Picasso: Old Woman with Jewels. 1901 68
Pablo Picasso: Les Demoiselles dAvignon. 1907 121
Pablo Picasso: Figure. 1907 112
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: Girls by the Seashore. 1879 136
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: Pleasant Land. 1882 99
Georges Rouault: The Wrestler, ca. 1906 62
Georges Rouault: Head of Christ. 1913 146
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff: Flowering Trees. 1909 143
Paul Signac: Au temps d'harmonie. 1893-95 99
Louis Valtat: Nude in the Garden. 1894 29
Louis Valtat: Water Carriers at Arcachon. 1897 29
Page from L'lllustration, November 4, 1905 44
Derain in his studio, ca. 1908 110
11
Introduction
Genuinely new art is always challenging, sometimes even
shocking to those not prepared for it. In 1905, the paint
ings of Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, and their friends
seemed shocking to conservative museum-goers; hence the even
tual popularity of the term les fauves, or "wild beasts" by which
these artists became known. But shock and surprise quickly
disappear. To look again at these exquisitely decorative paint
ings is to realize that the term Fauvism tells us hardly anything
at all about the ambitions or concepts that inform Fauvist art.
"Wild beasts" seems the most unlikely of descriptions for these
artists. The title Fauvism is in fact a misleading one for the
movement to be discussed here.
Matisse and his friends were first called fauves when they
exhibited together at the Paris Salon d'Automne of 1905. The
artists themselves did not use the name. "Matisse tells me that
he still has no idea what 'fauvism' means" reported Georges
Duthuit later.1 The Fauvist movement, it could be said, was the
result of public and critical reactions to the artists' work. It
began when their work first provoked widespread public in
terest, in the autumn of 1905, and lasted until approximately
the autumn of 1907, when critics realized that the group was
disintegrating. Critical recognition, however, inevitably lags
behind artistic innovation. The Fauvist style (or better, styles)
slightly preceded the Fauvist movement: the first true Fauve
paintings were exhibited at the Salon des Independants in the
spring of 1905; the last important Fauvist Salon was the Inde
pendants two years later. The Fauvist group, in contrast, pre
ceded both the movement and the style, since it had begun to
emerge even before 1900. It comprised, in fact, three fairly dis
tinct circles: first, Henri Matisse and his fellow students from
Gustave Moreau's studio and the Academie Carriere, including
Albert Marquet, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, and Jean
Puy, and, somewhat apart from these, Georges Rouault; second,
the so-called "school of Chatou" namely Andre Derain and
Maurice de Vlaminck; and third, the latecomers to the group
from Le Havre, Emile-Othon Friesz, Raoul Dufy, and Georges
Braque. There was also the Dutchman, Kees van Dongen, who
met the others at the salons and galleries where they all ex
hibited. Matisse was both leader and linchpin of these circles.
When he became friendly with Derain in 1905, the original
Matisse circle suffered from his absence while Derain, and in
turn Vlaminck, benefited. Only when the Havrais artists saw
Matisse's paintings did they develop their own Fauve styles.
When Matisse and Derain finally went their own separate ways
in 1907, Fauvism itself ended.
The course of Fauvism was crucially affected by the interac
tion of personalities. The nature of these personalities is well
expressed in the series of portraits the artists painted of each
other. Matisse and Derain spent the summer of 1905 at the small
Mediterranean seaport of Collioure not far from the Spanish
border and there painted some of the works that created such a
sensation in the Salon d'Automne of that year. Among the most
familiar paintings from that amazingly productive summer
are their companion portraits: broadly set out in intense, sat
urated colors, Matisse represented as the self-contained and
self-confident master and Derain as his youthful and rather
more exuberant colleague (p. 14). Also from Collioure comes an
unfinished, far more casually painted portrait by Derain: a rare
image of Matisse as a true fauve, with violent red beard and
paint-smeared hand, advancing from an interior that seems
almost to be in flames (p. 16). This was undoubtedly how many
people imagined Matisse, although the finished painting is far
more accurate a representation of his sober and professorial
public image? When Derain wished to convince his parents
that painting was a respectable career, it was Matisse who was
invited as evidence of that fact? Only in very private images,
such as the unfinished Derain painting, does one see the intense
artistic excitement and even anxiety lying behind Matisse's
calm and decorative art.
Neither Matisse nor Derain was a fauve by personality. Only
Vlaminck acted out something approaching a fauve existence.
Matisse finally gave up violin duets with him because he played fortissimo all the time. "The same might have been said of his
painting of this period," Alfred Barr has remarked? This is cer
tainly…