Gallery overview

Literature "L'Atelier du Maître du Fils Prodigue" Georges Marlier, Jaarboek KMSK Antwerpen 1961, p. 109 nr. 10 (mention of this work) Provenance Auction Van Herck, Antwerp 15 March 1954, auction nr. 77 cat. nr. 24 reprod. (mentioned as identified by Max Friedländer as a work of this Master)

Exhibition "Exposition d'oeuvres récentes de Théo Van Rysselberghe" Gal. Georges Giroux, Brussels 10-21.04.1926, nrs. 13 to 24 (12 works of this series were exhibited there)
"Retrospectieve Théo Van Rysselberghe" MSK, Ghent 1962, cat. nr. 159 (here with title "Fontaine aux statues") Literature "Théo Van Rysselberghe. Catalogue raisonné" Ronald Feltkamp, Les Éditions de l'amateur/ Éditions Racine, Brussels 2003, nr. P-061, p. 454 reprod.
"Mons & Coeur du Hainaut: Guide d'architecture moderne et contemporaine 1885-2015" Ed. Mardaga, Brussels 2015, p. 268-269 (ivm 'Le Pachy')
We thank Mr. Olivier Bertrand for the information he has kindly provided for this work and it will be included in the catalogue raisonné Provenance coll. Léon Guinotte (1870-1950), industrialist, lawyer and politician
coll. Max Boël - Anna Guinotte, Brussels
auction Palais Galliéra, Paris 15/06/1965, lot 157
auction Campo nr. 79, Antwerp 19/10/1969, lot 562




Théo Van Rysselberghe - A touch of Côte d’Azur in Mariemont

The south of Europe, in particular the Provence, had completely taken over Théo Van Rysselberghe’s artist's heart. He was enthused by the warm colours, the Mediterranean light and the enchanting environments. It is in this region that he will reside for a large part of his career. In 1917, when he was commissioned by the Brussels industrial and philanthropist Léon Guinotte (1870-1950) to paint 17 works for his villa Le Pachy in Mariemont, Van Rysselberghe was inspired by the poetry he found in the idyllic garden views of which the Côte d'Azur offers a great wealth. "Fontaine aux statues à Mazargues" proposes a view of the park and the water features around the Villa Magalone in Mazargues, Marseille. Le Corbusier will later build his famous "Cité Radieuse" on a part of this domain.

The series for Le Pachy was part of a larger-scale renovation project led by Théo's brother and Art Nouveau architect Octave Van Rysselberghe, who also designed Théo's villa in Saint-Clair. The paintings were realized between 1920 and 1924. Van Rysselberghe, being a brother of two architects and friend of Henry Van de Velde, had a desire to create grandly arranged, harmonious ensembles for domestic interiors, such as the Villa Nocard in Neuilly. Other artists of his generation, such as Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, also connected to this trend. According to them, the fundamental task of the artist lies in various aspects of life and their talent is not just limited to an easel.

In those years Van Rysselberghe abandoned the rigorous pointillism, his palette yet without losing its intensity. The touch is freer and more varied, the colors are more nuanced and blend into one another. The delicate pink, green and blue shades shine in the Mediterranean light. The shadow of the afternoon sun, Van Rysselberghes beloved moment to paint, offers some cooling. The peaceful garden is disturbed only by the rippling of the water surface, which is suggested by ingeniously applied brush strokes. An ideal image where the residents of Le Pachy can dream away, or as Emile Verhaeren states:

«Cet art plonge non point dance le rêve ou l’extase mais dance une sorte de vie choisie qu'il montre sous ses aspects de santé et beauté. The bonheur frais y circule sans qu’on songe aux idylles des anciens poètes, ni au paradis classique. La donnée n’en est en rien littéraire. Ce ne sont que de belles chairs, heureuses de se déployer, nues et claires, parmi les caresses de l’eau et du soleil. »
("This art plunges not dream dance or ecstasy but dance a kind of chosen life which it shows in its aspects of health and beauty. Fresh happiness circulates without one thinking of the idylls of ancient poets or of classical paradise. The subject is in no way literary. These are only beautiful skins, happy to unfold, naked and clear, among the caresses of water and sun. ")

Literature "Picasso, Cat. de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié 1904-1967" G. Bloch, Bern 1968 (tome I), cf. nr. 4
"Picasso Peintre-Graveur, Catalogue raisonné 1899-1931" Brigitte Baer, Bern 1990 (tome I) cf. nr. 5.b.2. Provenance Gal. Lareuse, Washington

Literature Het werk wordt opgenomen in de oeuvrecatalogus in
voorbereiding door Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier Provenance verworven door de grootvader van de vorige
eigenaar

Exhibition "Ossip Zadkine" Gal. Schmit, Paris 1970, cf. nr. 49 reprod.
"Ossip Zadkine" Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York 1971, cf. nr. 36 reprod.
"Ossip Zadkine" Gal. Conkright, Caracas 1972, cf. nr. 15 reprod.
"Ossip Zadkine" Artcurial, Paris 1979 Literature "Zadkine. Catalogue Raisonné des sculptures" Ionel Jianou, Éd. Arted, Paris 1979, cf. cat. nr. 475, Pl. 62 reprod.
"Ossip Zadkine. L'Oeuvre sculpté" Sylvain Lecombre, Éd. Paris-Musées 1994, cf. cat. nr. 319

Exhibition "James Ensor" The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv 1981, nr. 40
"James Ensor - Dipinti, Disegni, Incisioni" Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome 1981, nr. 20
"James Ensor" Kunsthaus, Zurich 1983, nr. 96
"James Ensor" KMSK, Antwerp 1983, nr. 103
"James Ensor" Museum of Modern Art, Kobe 1983-84, nr. 67
"James Ensor - Belgien um 1900" Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munchen 1989, nr. 42
"James Ensor" Musée du Petit Palais, Paris 1990, nr. 220
"Ensor" KMSK, Brussels 1999-2000, nr. 181 Literature "James Ensor. Leven en werk. Oeuvrecatalogus van de schilderijen" Xavier Tricot, Mercatorfonds, Brussels 2009, cat. nr. 606 reprod. Provenance coll. Augusta Boogaerts, Brussels
coll. Dr. Denonne, Brussels




Ensor and the ladies

As virtuoso an artist with pen and brush, as clumsy Ensor was in his contact with the opposite sex. “Faithless and heartless” he calls them, “a pond of hypocrisy and malice, cave of robbery and mortal sin, Pandora’s box”. The many muses that coloured his life and his work must have been quite special. There were, among others, Emma Lambotte (his patron), Mariette Rousseau (his platonic love) and Alice Frey (who boasted being his ‘only student’ and ‘more than just a friend’). And then there was Augusta Boogaerts (1870-1951).

Ensor and Augusta met at the end of the 1880’s. They would never marry, nor would they ever live together but they would have a lifelong friendship that significantly influenced the work of the artist, despite her occasionally unpleasant character. Ensor called her ‘the siren’. She was the one who composed his still lifes, who selected shelves and gadgets and who handled the sales of his works of art, even after his death.

The special relationship between the two is depicted in a enigmatic way in the portrait here at auction. In soft, bright colours, a fragile Augusta is represented. Ensor shows her in a loving way but her look is without emotion and mysterious. We cannot grasp the psyche of this woman. Augusta is not alone in the room. Behind her we can see the contours of the painting “Ensor et Leman discutant peinture”. In this work, the other woman, Mariette Rousseau, stands between a squabbling Ensor and Gerard Leman. A desperate mask floats above her. The various actors in this scene suggest that there’s more to it…

Exhibition "Beeldhouwers en schilders van dieren" Opbouwwerk Ijzerstreek vzw Vinkem-Beauvoorde, 1993

Exhibition "Mario Merz" Guggenheim Museum, New York 1989, cat. nr. 87 reprod. Provenance Gal. Ippolito Simonis, Toronto
coll. Tucci, Torino
coll. Alfonso Artiaco, Pozzuolo
coll. Baronian-Francey, Brussels




Mario Merz, medicine student, poet, graphic artist and informal painter, caught the eye of the art critic and curator Germano Celand in 1967. He invited him to participate in an exhibition in the Bertesca Gallery in Genua. Herewith, Merz stood at the cradle of the movement that will carry the name Arte Povera, where also Luciane Fabro, Richard Long and Michelangelo Pistoletto were active members.

In line with this movement, Merz payed attention to the organic world, contrary to the trend of industrialization and capitalism. The row of Fibonacci is an ordering element in his work. This formula is based on a mathematic progression, where every number equals the sum of the two previous ones. It shows how constant growth behaves in a spatial and temporal structure. In his art Merz handles organic forms, derived from the fauna and flora, like snail houses, snakes and foliage. Thanks to the reference to Fibonacci, his installations and paintings, objects with an inherent static nature, become focus points from which a dynamic energy emanates.

Provenance Gal. Stéphane Janssen, Brussels

Provenance Guy Pieters Gal., Knokke, acquired by the present owner in 2011




Delvoye’s pathetic pretzel

"Instead of fighting popular culture, we should accept it and chew it."

As in many Flemish households, mother Delvoye also adorned hers with a crucifix. The artist modeled projects such as Pretzel after this simple and unpretentious object. He hauls the recognizable religious iconography of the Christ figure through a computer-controlled mangle to achieve a visually astonishing effect. The twisted and elongated bodies refer to a Gothic aesthetic, where images were also mannered to serve an architectural or decorative visual language.

Stretched out, twisted and distorted: the manipulation emphasizes the suffering of Christ. The loop of bodies forms a crown of thorns, symbol of pathos. Or one could see an ordinary ball of barbed wire. Or even the knot shaped pastry called pretzel. Through this grotesque transformation of a recognizable formal language, the artist provokes a shift from the domain of the sacred to that of the profane, and beyond, to that of the trivial.

He plays with the visible contradiction between the old and the contemporary, the beautiful and the repulsive. This also reminds of his “Saw blade” (lot 515), the saw painted with Delft motifs. Delvoye's creations are quirky and bizarre, but delightfully beautiful and fascinatingly poetic.

Provenance Lens Fine Art, Antwerp

Literature "Reinhoud. Catalogue raisonné. Tome 2/ Sculptures 1970-1981" Éd. Gallimard, 2005, nr. 894, p. 297 reprod.

Literature "Luc Tuymans Graphic Works 1989-2012" Manfred Sellink & Tommy Simoens, Ed. Ludion, 2012, cf. nr. 63.2

Literature To be included in the catalogue raisonné in preparation by Mr. Richard Comyn

Literature The authenticity was confirmed to us by Mr. Olivier Bertrand and the work is to be included in the online catalogue raisonné

Literature "George Minne" Leo van Puyvelde, Collection Les Contemporains, Brussels 1930, cf. cat. nr. 25 (reprod. of a wooden copy)
"George Minne en de kunst rond 1900" MSK , Ghent 1982, exhibition cat. cf. nr. 64 (reprod. of a wooden copy from the collection of the MSK Ghent)
"George Minne: Das Frühwerk und seine Rezeption in Deutschland und Österreich bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg" Inga Rossi-Schrimpf, Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften, Weimar 2012, cf. nr. P 18 reprod. Provenance coll. Maurice Sijs, Ghent (1880-1972)

Literature "Frits Van den Berghe" Piet Boyens, with catalogue raisonné by Patrick Derom & Gilles Marquenie, Pandora, Antwerp 1999, p. 108 reprod. and cat. nr. 73 reprod. Provenance coll. Dr. A. Martens, Astene

Literature "Gust. De Smet. Kroniek, Kunsthistorische analyse" Piet Boyens, Antwerp 1989, cf. cat. nr. 81 (reprod. of a similar composition)
The authenticty of this work was confirmed to us by Mr. Piet Boyens.

Provenance private coll., Southern Germany

Literature will be included in the re-issue of the "Catalogue raisonné de la Peinture de Gino Severini" in preparation by Prof. Daniela Fonti

Exhibition "Amédée Cortier" Musée de Louvain-la-Neuve 1992
"Amédée Cortier" Huib Hostes huis, Knokke 2018, cf. p. 68-69 reprod. of the similar painting Literature "Amédée Cortier. De abstracte werken 1961-1975" Eric Pil, Ludion/Cera 2007, cf. nr. 204 reprod. of the similar painting

Literature "Rik Poot" Marnix Neerman Gallery, Bruges 1986, cf. p. 15 reprod. Provenance coll. of the artist

Provenance Gal. Elisabeth Den Bieman de Haas, Amsterdam

Literature "Roger Raveel en de Nieuwe Visie" Marc Ruyters, Ed. Snoeck, Ghent 2006, p. 354 reprod.
"Een verschrikkelijk mooi leven" Carlos Alleene, dl 2 - 1970-2005, Ed. De Muyter, Deinze 2006, p. 583 reprod.

Literature "Homo Faber" Bart De Baere e.a., Mercatorfonds, Antwerp 2006, cf. p. 345 reprod.
"Jan Fabre au Louvre. L'ange de la métamorphose" Marie-Laure Bernadac e.a., Gallimard/Musée du Louvre Éd., Paris 2008, cf. p. 182-183 & 185 reprod.
"Jan Fabre. Hortus/Corpus" Stefan Hertmans & Evert van Straeten, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo/NAj Publ., Rotterdam 2011, cf. p. 130-131 & 133 reprod. Provenance Deweer Art Gal., Otegem

Provenance Gal. Willy D'Huyser, Brussels (acquired by the present owner)

Exhibition "Nevelson. Wood Sculptures and Collages" Wildenstein & Co., New York 1980
"Land of the Free. Home of the Brave" Crane Kalman Gal., London 2000 Provenance Pace Gal., New York
Crane Kalman Gal., London
private coll., Paris