Matisse needed to purchase a Van Gogh portrait—as an alternative, his brother purchased a bicycle – The Artwork Newspaper

In 1899, Matisse, then a 29-year-old struggling artist, found Van Gogh’s work at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris. He fell in love with L’Arlesienne and needed to purchase the portrait of the lady of Arles, which was being provided for simply 150 francs (then equal to £6). However the impoverished painter nonetheless discovered it a problem to boost the cash.

Greater than 4 many years later Matisse recalled what had occurred: “At Vollard’s there was a portrait by Van Gogh of a girl from Arles on a pink background. Nowadays it’s well-known.” This was most likely the portray of L’Arlesienne (April 1890) which is now in São Paulo, though it may need been the same model which might now be discovered at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea.

Again in 1899 Matisse had written to his youthful brother Auguste to ask for assist: “If you wish to use your financial savings to purchase a corker of a portray, I’ve discovered one. It’s low-cost and it’s very lovely.” Auguste responded: “I can’t, I’ve simply purchased an Acatène.” An Acatène was one of many newest bicycles, costing round 500 francs.

Matisse in some way managed to boost the 150 francs for L’Arlesienne, returning to Vollard’s gallery six weeks later. By this time, nevertheless, the canny seller had raised the worth to 450 francs, which was utterly past the artist’s means.

Vollard defined to the dissatisfied Matisse: “An image doesn’t have a set worth. Say I’ve an image right here and I usually ask 500 francs for it. Somebody like Monsieur de Camondo [a very wealthy collector] arrives and takes a passing curiosity in it. My image instantly goes up from 500 to five,000 francs.”

Nonetheless, whereas Matisse had missed out on a Van Gogh portray, he did no less than already personal a drawing. In the summertime of 1897 he had stayed on the Breton island of Belle-Ile, the place he met the Australian artist John Russell, who had develop into buddies with Van Gogh in Paris a decade earlier. After shifting to Arles Van Gogh had despatched Russell finely executed pen-and-ink copies of a dozen of his work. Matisse was so entranced by seeing them that Russell very generously gave him one, Haystacks (July-August 1888).

Matisse later acquired two different Van Gogh drawings: The Harvest (July 1888) and Portrait of Endurance Escalier (August 1888).

Inspiration

Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne had been the good inspirers for the younger Matisse. In 1898 Matisse had painted his personal model of Sunflowers. Though the motif is undoubtedly Van Gogh’s, Matisse created his personal very private picture, working in a a lot looser, extra Expressionist fashion than the Dutchman.

Matisse’s admiration for Van Gogh solely elevated after he considered the primary retrospective of the artist’s work on the Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris in 1901.

On the exhibition he met André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, fellow artists who had been equally entranced by Van Gogh’s expressive use of color. Matisse and his two associates had been quickly dubbed Les Fauves (The Wild Beasts), due to their highly effective brushwork and stunning colors. 

Matisse’s most vital Fauve portrait was of his spouse Amélie. Relationship from 1905, it is called Portrait of Madame Matisse: The Inexperienced Line. In colouration it has echoes of Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe (January 1889), which Matisse knew nicely. 

Within the 1941 interview wherein Matisse recalled the bicycle anecdote he additionally revealed that, on the wall of his bed room, he had two reproductions of work: Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and a piece by his fellow Fauve, Georges Rouault. The Van Gogh was most likely the one illustrated above, which had been acquired by Vollard in 1896, though it was presumably the opposite self-portrait with bandaged ear which is now at London’s Courtauld Gallery. A decade later, the 71-year-old Matisse nonetheless had the Van Gogh replica close to his mattress. 

In 1953, a 12 months earlier than Matisse’s dying, the aged and primarily bedridden artist was nonetheless innovating, producing his famed “cut-outs”—brightly-coloured irregular shapes organized on a white background. That 12 months he informed an interviewer: “I’ve stored my eye on Cezanne and Van Gogh; every of them sought desperately to depict his personal imaginative and prescient.”

Different Van Gogh information:

Astonishing Issues: The Drawings of Victor Hugo (till 29 June) opens immediately at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. The present’s title comes from Van Gogh, who used the expression “astonishing issues” in a letter to his brother, Theo, to bathe reward on the Nineteenth-century French author and his sketches. Vincent was an ideal admirer of the novelist. Nonetheless, though the Dutchman’s phrases have supplied the present’s title, he doesn’t characteristic within the precise exhibition.

Martin Bailey is a number one Van Gogh specialist and particular correspondent for The Artwork Newspaper. Bailey has curated Van Gogh exhibitions on the Barbican Artwork Gallery, Compton Verney/Nationwide Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.

Bailey has written plenty of bestselling books on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013 (UK and US), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016 (UK and US), Starry Night time: Van Gogh on the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and US). The Sunflowers are Mine (UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (UK and US) are additionally now out there in a extra compact paperback format. Residing with Vincent van Gogh: the Houses and Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US) gives an summary of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Buddy Van Gogh/Emile Bernard gives the primary English translation of Bernard’s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UK and US).

To contact Martin Bailey, please electronic mail [email protected]. Please word that he doesn’t undertake authentications.

Learn extra from Martin’s Adventures with Van Gogh weblog right here.