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Lot Essay
This season, Christie's is pleased to present a comprehensive and superb collection on offer of smaller works by the Belgian artist Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres which forms a fine example of the way this gifted painter-traveller worked and also shows his stylistic development.
After World War I Le Mayeur undertook many travels around the world with a duration of a few years each. He returned to Brussels to live there for 6 to 12 months before he set out again to look for sunlight and colour. In 1920 he went to North Africa where he visited Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The oil sketch of An Arabian Market (Lot 141) was painted in this period and shows how he prepared for a larger canvas. He usually began with location sketches on paper followed by small oil sketches to try out the angle of light for the final painting. In these oil sketches, the bright colours really stand out andhe already applied paint in a thick layer and with a generous touch. After North Africa his journeys brought him to India, Madagascar and Djibouti amongst others. In this period he started to paint women who, with their voluptuous forms, completely absorbed the whole composition. The series he executed a few years later in the South of France, St Tropez (ca. 1928), was still influenced by this way of depicting women. The painting The Bathers (Lot 140) belongs to this series and is very similar to the paintings illustrated in the authoritative monograph Le Mayeur de Merpres, Painter Traveller co-written by Jop Ubbens and Cathinka Huizing. Le Mayeur is known for often using the same attributes for his different creations. The yellow parasol was in all these images, just like bottles and fruits.
Before arriving on Bali where he decided to settle down, his travels brought him to India a second time. He visited this country in 1921 where he had seen Benares "through a prism of fantasy" and in Jaipur the procession of the elephants, resulting in Plein met olifant te Jaipur, Rajasthan, India (Elephant in a Square in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India) (Lot 139). He had dreamed of an opportunity to paint the event ever since this last visit. He prepared for the large canvasses by making sketches of the part of the town, a big square, though with the procession would pass as well as drawings and oil sketches of the elephants. In the whole series of elephants it is not only the colours that inspires him but it also shows how much he was dependent on the light angles: "As the sun quickly sets more and more and the shadows grow longer and longer, despair mixed with deep anger seizes me. The sun keeps sinking [..] the effect passes by all too quickly".
In 1932 Le Mayeur arrived on Bali and although he planned to stay there only for three years, he married and stayed more than 25 years in this paradise. His wife Ni Pollok, his muse, had to model every day. He painted her everywhere: in the garden of their house, on the market and on the beach. By the Beach (Lot 138) is an charming oil sketch in which the artist experimented with composition, colour and light. In this early Balinese period Le Mayeur used large colour planes and applied detail sparingly. The compositions are, compared with his later works, simple. He renders impressions of women in various attitudes and places them in a larger scene. In this respect the work could not be more unlike the earlier canvasses from, for instance, the south of France where he painted the Bathers with the plane-absorbing figures.
A few years later, just before WWII, Le Mayeur was very much attracted to multiple figured compositions, like the large Temple Dancers in the evening sale. The two small oil sketches of Temple festival and Market scene (Lot 137) are fine examples of his search how to handle composition, colour and light before putting it on a larger canvas. With quick bold strokes and with an easy flair he entrusts the composition on the board. The colours the tireless artist uses in the first years in Bali - light blue, light green and pinkish pastel shades - are almost opposite of the colours we see in Balinese women dancing in an interior (Lot 118).
Christie's is grateful to Drs. C. Z. Huizing for this catalogue entry.
After World War I Le Mayeur undertook many travels around the world with a duration of a few years each. He returned to Brussels to live there for 6 to 12 months before he set out again to look for sunlight and colour. In 1920 he went to North Africa where he visited Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The oil sketch of An Arabian Market (Lot 141) was painted in this period and shows how he prepared for a larger canvas. He usually began with location sketches on paper followed by small oil sketches to try out the angle of light for the final painting. In these oil sketches, the bright colours really stand out andhe already applied paint in a thick layer and with a generous touch. After North Africa his journeys brought him to India, Madagascar and Djibouti amongst others. In this period he started to paint women who, with their voluptuous forms, completely absorbed the whole composition. The series he executed a few years later in the South of France, St Tropez (ca. 1928), was still influenced by this way of depicting women. The painting The Bathers (Lot 140) belongs to this series and is very similar to the paintings illustrated in the authoritative monograph Le Mayeur de Merpres, Painter Traveller co-written by Jop Ubbens and Cathinka Huizing. Le Mayeur is known for often using the same attributes for his different creations. The yellow parasol was in all these images, just like bottles and fruits.
Before arriving on Bali where he decided to settle down, his travels brought him to India a second time. He visited this country in 1921 where he had seen Benares "through a prism of fantasy" and in Jaipur the procession of the elephants, resulting in Plein met olifant te Jaipur, Rajasthan, India (Elephant in a Square in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India) (Lot 139). He had dreamed of an opportunity to paint the event ever since this last visit. He prepared for the large canvasses by making sketches of the part of the town, a big square, though with the procession would pass as well as drawings and oil sketches of the elephants. In the whole series of elephants it is not only the colours that inspires him but it also shows how much he was dependent on the light angles: "As the sun quickly sets more and more and the shadows grow longer and longer, despair mixed with deep anger seizes me. The sun keeps sinking [..] the effect passes by all too quickly".
In 1932 Le Mayeur arrived on Bali and although he planned to stay there only for three years, he married and stayed more than 25 years in this paradise. His wife Ni Pollok, his muse, had to model every day. He painted her everywhere: in the garden of their house, on the market and on the beach. By the Beach (Lot 138) is an charming oil sketch in which the artist experimented with composition, colour and light. In this early Balinese period Le Mayeur used large colour planes and applied detail sparingly. The compositions are, compared with his later works, simple. He renders impressions of women in various attitudes and places them in a larger scene. In this respect the work could not be more unlike the earlier canvasses from, for instance, the south of France where he painted the Bathers with the plane-absorbing figures.
A few years later, just before WWII, Le Mayeur was very much attracted to multiple figured compositions, like the large Temple Dancers in the evening sale. The two small oil sketches of Temple festival and Market scene (Lot 137) are fine examples of his search how to handle composition, colour and light before putting it on a larger canvas. With quick bold strokes and with an easy flair he entrusts the composition on the board. The colours the tireless artist uses in the first years in Bali - light blue, light green and pinkish pastel shades - are almost opposite of the colours we see in Balinese women dancing in an interior (Lot 118).
Christie's is grateful to Drs. C. Z. Huizing for this catalogue entry.