Henri Lebasque (1865 - 1937)

Grand Nu (Marinette), Le Cannet

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Oil on canvas
73 x 92 cm (28 ³/₄ x 36 ¹/₄ inches)
Signed lower right, Lebasque
Executed in 1934

framed dimesions (101 x 93 x 6 cm)

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Provenance

Mme Henri Lebasque
Stramezzi collection, 1938
Klopfer Fine Art, Geneva, 1999
Stair Sainty Matthiesen Gallery, New York
Private collection, Europe, acquired from the above in 2000
Christie's, Amsterdam, 17th June 2014
Private collection, Austria, acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibitions

Venice, La Biennale di Venezia XXI, 1938, no. 32
Paris, Musée Galliera, Exposition Rétrospective Henri Lebasque, 16 June - 9 July 1952, no. 100 (illustrated)
Literature

D. Bazetoux, Henri Lebasque, Catalogue Raisonné, Neuilly-sur-Marne 2008, vol. I, no. 1070 (illustrated, p. 268)
Description

Celebrated Post-Impressionist artist Henri Lebasque (1865-1937) was born in Maine-et-Loire, France and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He was influenced by Pierre Bonnard, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and Edouard Vuillard amongst others. His palette is very luminous and colourful capturing the diffusion of natural light in his paintings.

Executed in 1934, this work is a wonderful example of Lebasque’s nude paintings. The painting opens onto an intimate scene depicting a young woman resting during a hot summer day. The wide opened door leads us into her garden. By the application of airy brushstrokes, we can imagine hearing the sound of the birds in the growing vegetation and the breeze entering the premises.

This original painting by Henri Lebasque is available for immediate purchase.

Artist's Biography

Henri Lebasque was a French Post-Impressionist painter born in 1865 in Champigné, France. He is best known for his fauvist style landscapes, interiors and intimate scenes. He began his art education at the Ecole régionale des Beaux-Arts d’Angers. Lebasque moved to Paris in 1886 where he met both Camille Pissarro and Auguste-Pierre Renoir, who later would have a large impact on his work. Lebasque acquainted the Intimist painters Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard who inspired his vision and George Seurat and Paul Signac taught him the importance of colour theory.

The artist was integral to the post-impressionist movement, where after learning from Impressionists themselves, he set out alongside Henri Matisse, Albert Gliezes and Jacques Villon, who were amongst the founding members of the Salon d’Automne in 1903. He continued to exhibit at the Salon des Independents, most notoriously with Matisse and the Fauves in the 1905 exhibition that gave the French Expressionists the name ‘Fauve’ meaning wild beast and dubbed by Louis Vaucxelles. The women he depicts are sensuous and are set amongst beautiful gardens and rural settings. He is known for his intimate nudes, and his mastery over the capturing of light that falls through the canopy of trees and shrubs onto his subjects.

His move to the French Riviera seeking its source of light provided a transformation in his palette that would last in all his paintings, displaying an abundance of light and colour. Lebasque moved to Cannes with Matisse and Bonnard as his neighbours in 1924. The artist had great commercial success and was wildly popular during his lifetime. He was described as “the painter of joy and light”.

He died in Le Cannet, France in 1937.

His works are held in collections of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Washington, D.C.; the National Museum of Western Art, Japan among others.

Henri Lebasque Henri Lebasque (1865 - 1937)