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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Metzinger catalogue critique currently being prepared by Bozena Nikiel.
Jean Metzinger was one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and indeed for many years appeared as the public face of the Cubists, in part because of his significant involvement in the Salon des Indépendants where he helped his fellow Cubists to exhibit. Metzinger was also, in 1912, the co-author alongside his friend and fellow artist Albert Gleizes of Du Cubisme, the first book dedicated to this revolutionary new way of depicting the world. During this crucial period, the two original trailblazers of Cubism, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, were hardly exhibiting their works, meaning that Metzinger's advocacy of this revolutionary new style was all-important to the momentum that it would come to gain over the following years. It is telling that, as early as 1911, Guillaume Apollinaire had described him as, 'the only adept of Cubism in the proper sense' (Apollinaire, quoted in D. Cooper, The Cubist Epoch, London, 1999, p. 75).
Suzanne nue au poisson rouge is a portrait of the artist’s wife, Suzanne Phocas, a Greek artist and original member of Société Anonyme, Inc., the American art oganisation founded in 1920 by Marcel Duchamp, Many Ray and Katherine Dreier. This portrait was painted at a pivotal moment in the pair’s relationship as, despite being romantically involved from 1923, they were only able to marry in 1929 after the death of Jean’s first wife where the couple then remained together for the rest of their lives.
This 1930s work is characteristic of Metzinger's later works, which often feature attractive female subjects presented as the central focus of a composition representing a move away from the frenetic forms of his analytical and mathematically-driven Cubism of the 1910s. These simplified compositions are presented through a combination of moody colours, a sharp delineation of contours and volumetric shading of rounded forms, a style that was indebted to his Purist aesthetic of the 1920s. However, the vibrant orange of the goldfish, skillfully positioned in the lower left of the painting, creates a vivid juxtaposition to the complimentary opaque blue that frames Suzanne’s body, recalling the artist’s early ideas on colour that he had explained to the American writer Gelett Burgess in late 1908- 1909:
"Instead of copying nature...we create a milieu of our own wherein our sentiment can work itself out through a juxtaposition of colors. It is hard to explain it, but it may perhaps be illustrated by analogy with literature and music... Music does not attempt to imitate nature's sounds, but it does interpret and embody emotions awakened by nature through a convention of its own, in a way to be aesthetically pleasing. In some such way, we, taking our hint from Nature, construct decoratively pleasing harmonies and symphonies of color expressive of our sentiment" (quoted in G. Burgess, "Wild Men of Paris", in Architectural Record, May 1910, p. 413).
Jean Metzinger was one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and indeed for many years appeared as the public face of the Cubists, in part because of his significant involvement in the Salon des Indépendants where he helped his fellow Cubists to exhibit. Metzinger was also, in 1912, the co-author alongside his friend and fellow artist Albert Gleizes of Du Cubisme, the first book dedicated to this revolutionary new way of depicting the world. During this crucial period, the two original trailblazers of Cubism, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, were hardly exhibiting their works, meaning that Metzinger's advocacy of this revolutionary new style was all-important to the momentum that it would come to gain over the following years. It is telling that, as early as 1911, Guillaume Apollinaire had described him as, 'the only adept of Cubism in the proper sense' (Apollinaire, quoted in D. Cooper, The Cubist Epoch, London, 1999, p. 75).
Suzanne nue au poisson rouge is a portrait of the artist’s wife, Suzanne Phocas, a Greek artist and original member of Société Anonyme, Inc., the American art oganisation founded in 1920 by Marcel Duchamp, Many Ray and Katherine Dreier. This portrait was painted at a pivotal moment in the pair’s relationship as, despite being romantically involved from 1923, they were only able to marry in 1929 after the death of Jean’s first wife where the couple then remained together for the rest of their lives.
This 1930s work is characteristic of Metzinger's later works, which often feature attractive female subjects presented as the central focus of a composition representing a move away from the frenetic forms of his analytical and mathematically-driven Cubism of the 1910s. These simplified compositions are presented through a combination of moody colours, a sharp delineation of contours and volumetric shading of rounded forms, a style that was indebted to his Purist aesthetic of the 1920s. However, the vibrant orange of the goldfish, skillfully positioned in the lower left of the painting, creates a vivid juxtaposition to the complimentary opaque blue that frames Suzanne’s body, recalling the artist’s early ideas on colour that he had explained to the American writer Gelett Burgess in late 1908- 1909:
"Instead of copying nature...we create a milieu of our own wherein our sentiment can work itself out through a juxtaposition of colors. It is hard to explain it, but it may perhaps be illustrated by analogy with literature and music... Music does not attempt to imitate nature's sounds, but it does interpret and embody emotions awakened by nature through a convention of its own, in a way to be aesthetically pleasing. In some such way, we, taking our hint from Nature, construct decoratively pleasing harmonies and symphonies of color expressive of our sentiment" (quoted in G. Burgess, "Wild Men of Paris", in Architectural Record, May 1910, p. 413).