Raoul DufyLe funiculaire à L'EstaqueOil on fine canvas. 38 x 46.2 cm. Framed. Signed 'Raoul Dufy'

Raoul Dufy
Le funiculaire à L'Estaque
Oil on fine canvas. 38 x 46.2 cm. Framed. Signed 'Raoul Dufy' in black within composition to lower right. - The stretcher verso with traces of old paper labels. - The canvas overlap with old relining. Minimal, pinpoint-sized losses of colour in places.

Lafaille 366

Provenance
Formerly Gimpel Fils Gallery, London (1977); Galerie Michael Haas, Berlin (acquired there in 1979), since then private possession, North Germany

Exhibitions
London 1957 (Gimpel Fils), Autour du Cubisme, no. 6; Geneva 1960 (Galerie Motte), auction 15 Oct. 1960, no. 234 with illus. plate XXXIX ("Paysage. Le funiculaire à l'Estaque"); Cologne 1982 (Kunsthalle Köln), Kubismus. Künstler, Themen, Werke, 1907-1920, cat. no. 35 ("Die Seilbahn") with illus. p. 188; Laren 2014/2015 (Museum Singer Laren), Raoul Dufy 1877-1953, exhib. cat. p. 40 with colour illus.

Literature
Auction catalogue Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd., Important Impressionist and Modern Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture, 27 Nov. 1964, no. 84 with illus.; Auction catalogue Sotheby & Co., Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 1 July 1970, no. 34 with illus. ("L'Estaque" with provenance Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, Gimpel Fils, London); Auction catalogue Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd., Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 6 December 1977, no. 51 with colour illus.; cf. Andreas Franzke, Die Landschaft im Kubismus, in: exhib. cat. Kubismus, Künstler, Themen, Werke, 1907-1920, Cologne 1982, p. 93 ff.

The French painter and draughtsman Raoul Dufy, who turned to Fauvism early on and was very successful with it, transformed his artistic formal idiom after 1907. One reason for this transformation may have been the retrospective of Paul Cézanne's oeuvre, which was to be seen at the Parisian gallery Bernheim-Jeune in 1906, following the artist's death. In mid-April of 1908 Dufy moved into the Hotel Maurin in the fishers' village of L'Estaque, near Marseille - following in the footsteps of Cézanne, so to speak. During the summer months there, he worked shoulder to shoulder with Georges Braque, whose 1908 painting “Maisons à L'Estaque” is considered one of the key works of Cubism.
With regard to his palette, at this point in time it was no longer possible to detect any traces of his preceding Fauvist phase. Dufy's as well as Braque's use of colour is strongly reduced to a selection of almost monochrome tones. In the place of colour, the composition - aiming at a rigorous Cubist abstraction - clearly gains in importance.
The use of black contour lines is characteristic of Dufy's work and these accompany and provide rhythm to the articulation of the surfaces. The arches of a viaduct as well as the tracks of the funicular - seemingly tilted upwards - that has provided the work with its title make the village of L'Estaque topographically identifiable. The dividing up of the landscape image into different, sometimes graphic, compartments emphasises the relative planar character of this highly charged composition: this stands in contrast to the three-dimensional scaling of the pictorial elements in the work Braque created before the same landscape motif (see comparative illus.).

Raoul Dufy
Le funiculaire à L'Estaque
Öl auf feiner Leinwand. 38 x 46,2 cm. Gerahmt. In der Darstellung unten rechts schwarz signiert "Raoul Dufy". - Das Chassis rückseitig mit Spuren alter Papieraufkleber. - Der Leinwandumschlag alt randdoubliert. An wenigen Stellen mit minimalen, stecknadelgrossen Farbverlusten.

Lafaille 366

Provenienz
Ehemals Galerie Gimpel Fils, London; Christie's London (1977); Galerie Michael Haas, Berlin (dort 1979 erworben), seitdem in norddeutschem Privatbesitz

Ausstellungen
London 1957 (Gimpel Fils), Autour du Cubisme, Nr. 6; Genf 1960 (Galerie Motte), Auktion 15. Okt. 1960, Nr. 234 mit Abb. Tafel XXXIX ("Paysage. Le funiculaire