Compotier et journal

Details

Juan Gris (1887-1927)
Compotier et journal
signed and dated 'Juan Gris 25' (lower right)
oil on canvas
21¾ x 18 1/8 in. (55.3 x 46 cm.)
Painted in 1925

Provenance

Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris (no. 9312).
Galerie Simon, Paris.
Hermann Lange, Krefeld, by whom acquired from the above and thence by descent.
Private collection, Switzerland.

Literature

D. Cooper (ed.), Letters of Juan Gris (1913-1927), Collected by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, London, 1956, no. CCXXVII, 30 March 1926.
D. Cooper, Juan Gris, Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint, vol. II, Paris, 1977, no. 549, p. 372 (illustrated p. 373).

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Simon, Exposition rérospective Juan Gris, June 1928, no. 58 (incorrectly dated 1926).
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Exhibition in Honour of Daniel-H. Kahnweiler, February - March 1958, no. 31 (Illustrated).

Special Notice

These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

Brought to you by

Adrienne Everwijn-Dumas

aeverwijn-dumas@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2376

Lot Essay

Painted in 1925, during a period in the last few years of Gris' life which Daniel Henry Kahnweiler considered the most fruitful and beautiful of the artist's career, Compotier et journal is a lyrical and beautifully constructed still-life. With an array of overlapping forms, contained elements and fictive borders, edges and frames, Compotier et journal recalls Gris' earlier cubist aesthetic but has been softened into a more rounded and harmonious composition. 'From the purely technical point of view it was certainly the most rigorous period of his life. Stately and firm, his paintings had become the "flat coloured architecture" of which he talked. Everything was restored to the flat surface... Gris revealed himself at this time as a classical painter: lucidity, purity, the preponderance of the work of art itself, the predominance of the general, the static quality, all the symptoms are there. He is classical too in the way he subordinates his emotion to the work in which it is expressed' (D.H. Kahnweiler, Juan Gris, His Life and Work, London, 1969, pp. 129-130).

More from Impressionist/Modern Day Sale

View All