KEES VAN DONGEN (1877-1968) - Bateaux à quai (Boats at dock) Signed ‘K. Van [...]

KEES VAN DONGEN (1877-1968)Bateaux à quai (Boats at dock)Signed ‘K. Van Dongen’ (lower right)Oil on panel23.5 x 30.5 cmProvenance:Artcurial, Paris, 13 Oct 2011, lot 226Private Collection. This work will be included in the catalogue raisonnécurrently being prepared by Jacques Chalom desCordes under the sponsorship of WildensteinInstitute.Painted in bright and vivid colours, Bateaux àquai is an example of the fauves’ propensity torepresent nature. Van Dongen endows it with astrong expressivity, with the formal simplifi cationsof Cubism and the emotional experiences ofExpressionism.A Dutch-French painter, Kees Van Dongen,pseudonym of Cornelis Theodorus Marie vanDongen (1877-1968), was one of the leading fi guresof Fauvism. Along with Henri Matisse, Maurice deVlaminck, André Derain and others, van Dongenexhibited at the Salon d’Automne 1905. The criticLouis Vauxcelles described the artists as “fauves”(wild beasts) for their expressive and spontaneousbrushwork, intensely vivid and exuberant colours.He lived spent his life His life was spent betweenRotterdam and Paris, but he spent his last years,from 1949 to 1968, in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. In2012 Villa Sauber (Nouveau Musée National deMonaco)features an exhibition with van Dongen’smasterpieces, which were acquired by thePrincipality between 2004 and 2008.Prix de départ : 40000