Another side of Marcel Roux

It's now three years since I first posted about Marcel Roux, and I thought I had probably said all I had to say. But two recent acquisitions make me want to revisit this passionate and brilliant man. The first is one of Roux's rare individual etchings, L'échouée, as printed in the revue Byblis in 1923, after Roux's death, in brown ink on Lafuma wove paper. Most of Marcel Roux's original etchings were conceived and published in series, such as La Danse Macabre, Les Passions, Filles de Joie, and Les Sept Paroles; whether the enigmatic and dramatic L'échouée was intended to stand alone or to form part of a linked cycle, I do not know. I have to admit I don't quite know how to translate the title - the verb échouer means to fail, but I think this man may be intended to be shipwrecked, in which case the translation would be something like Washed Up; help from fluent French speakers will be gratefully received. No date is given, but I believe all Roux's etchings date from before WWI; he was unable to etch during the war, and afterwards his fatally weakened lungs couldn't bear the fumes from the acid.

Marcel Roux, L'échouée

Etching, pre-1914 (published by Byblis, 1923)

L'échouée was published alongside a moving essay by Marcel Roux's close friend Justin Godart, "Marcel Roux: graveur Lyonnais". Godart mentions three commissions for interpretative etchings from the Chalcographie du Louvre: Rembrandt's L'ange quittant la famille de Tobie and Le boeuf, and Botticelli's Venus. Roux was evidently not best pleased about the Venus (which he may never have executed) , expressing a preference for Rembrandt's Le bon Samaritain. I had thought until now that Marcel Roux's activity as an interpretative etcher was essentially confined to Rembrandt, whose etchings first inspired him and whom he described as the "Maître de ma jeunesse". But now I have acquired a series of twelve further interpretative etchings by Roux, which show a hitherto obscure side of his prodigious talent. These works date from 1911, and interpret paintings by Delacroix (including a bon Samaritain), Corot, Millet, and Daumier. Two of them (Corot's Baigneuse and La femme au tambourin) are on the Marcel Roux website, but unidentified. They come from what I believe must be the last great work to be illustrated with such etchings, the impossibly lavish exhibition catalogue Vingt Peintres du XIXe Siècle: chefs d'oeuvre de l'École Française. This was commissioned, printed, and published by Galerie Georges Petit. There is a text by Léon Roger-Milès, and 150 original etchings. The commissioning of the artists and art direction of the project appears to have been entrusted to Charles Waltner, so the general standard is very high, but the etchings by Marcel Roux are without doubt the stars of the show. There is nothing timid or restrained about them. Roux's mark-making is bold and vigorous, and exudes a sense of confidence. The plates are deeply-bitten, and the blacks are coal-black. Flicking through the pages there's no need to read the printed credit to recognize another Roux: they simply sing off the page.

Eugène Delacroix, Femmes turques au bain

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Eugène Delacroix, Arabe montant à cheval

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Eugène Delacroix, La mise au tombeau

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Eugène Delacroix, L'éducation d'Achille

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Eugène Delacroix, La délivrance de la princesse Olga

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Eugène Delacroix, Le bon Samaritain

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Eugène Delacroix, Tête de vieille femme

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Jean-François Millet, Le repos

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Jean-François Millet, La fuite

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Camille Corot, Baigneuse

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Camille Corot, La femme au tambourin

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Honoré Daumier, Une partie de dames

Etching by Marcel Roux, 1911

Given Marcel Roux's deeply religious sensibility, it comes as no surprise that he should respond so passionately to the Biblical subjects of La mise au tombeau and Le bon Samaritain, and his eye for social satire was well suited to Daumier, but I do find myself surprised and touched by the tenderness of the two etchings after Millet; this is a note not sounded in Roux's own work. Of the dozen etchings, I think the most completely successful is L'éducation d'Achille, which strikes me as a very powerful treatment of a difficult subject. The etchings were printed on thick BFK Rives wove paper, in an edition of 650 copies, of which these are from no. 324. I suspect the first 50 copies were printed on Japon, though this is not explicitly stated.

The unknown Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia is, of course, far from unknown. As the spokesman of the Cubist Section d'Or at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, and as the agent provocateur of Dada and Surrealism, Picabia became - with his close friend Marcel Duchamp - the prototypical modern artist. Disputatious, argumentative, controversial, witty, devil-may-care, Francis Picabia must have sparked a million conversations about the nature of art and the role of the artist. So it comes as something of a shock to discover another side to Picabia: his successful career as a Post-Impressionist, working under the direct influence and early encouragement of Sisley and Pissarro. It's as if Damian Hirst had begun as a Pre-Raphaelite, or Marina Abramovic were to suddenly unveil a hidden stash of genteel watercolours of flowers in vases. Picabia's Post-Impressionist phase lasted roughly from 1902 to 1908, and ended abruptly with his discovery of Cubism in 1909. One of his dealers, Danthon of the prestigious Galerie Haussman, was so disgusted by Picabia's change of direction that he auctioned off over a hundred of Picabia's paintings at the Hotel Drouot in March 1909, in what seems to have been a deliberate attempt to wreck his career. Although Picabia did execute some later lithographs and silkscreens, and at least one Cubist drypoint, his printmaking seems largely confined to this early period, and the six etchings in this post all date from around 1907 or a couple of years earlier (the date on Pêcheurs sur les bords du Loing may be 1904 or 1907, I can't tell). They were included in the first monograph on Picabia, Picabia, le peintre et l'aquafortiste by Édouard André, which was published in an edition of 250 copies in 1908.

Francis Picabia, Barque et maisons sur la mer

Etching, c. 1907

(There is a similar etching in MoMA, dated improbably to 1893)

Francis Picabia, Vue de Moret

Etching, c. 1907

Francis Picabia, Le châtaignier

Etching, c. 1907

These six exhilarating etchings provide, I think, a stunning insight into the ground of Picabia's art. Picabia was a revolutionary, but in essence he was simply carrying forward the torch lit by the Impressionists, especially Sisley (whom he knew from 1897 to the artist's death in 1898) and Camille Pissarro (whose sons Manzana and Rodo were friends of his in Montmartre). It was in Moret-sur-Loing that Picabia met Sisley and Pissarro (though he may also have met Pissarro in Martigues in 1898, certainly in 1902), and apart from the first, I believe all these etchings are scenes in Moret.

Francis Picabia, Les bords du Loing

Etching, 1907

Francis Picabia, Pêcheurs sur les bords du Loing

Etching, dated either 1907 or 1904

Francis Picabia, Un canal

Etching, c. 1907

Francis Picabia was born on 22 January 1879 in 82 rue des Petits Champs, Paris, and died in the same house on 30 November 1953. This might suggest a life of stasis and predictability, but in fact Francis Picabia led one of the most volatile art careers of his time. He was born François Marie Martinez Picabia, to a French mother and Spanish-Cuban father. The family was wealthy, and Picabia set about spending his inheritance with impressive zeal - he is said to have changed his car 107 times. His early enthusiasm for drawing and his natural talent were recognized in 1894 when, at the age of 16, he had a painting accepted by the Salon des Artistes Français. His family encouraged him to study art, and he entered the atelier of Fernand Cormon at the École des Beaux-Arts, and later also studied in Cormon's private atelier. He additionally studied under Wallet at the École des Arts Décoratifs, and in the Académie Humbert, where fellow-students included Georges Braque and Marie Laurencin. In 1908-1909 the revelation of Cubism may have come through Braque (though Picabia's excellent official website credits his bride-to-be Gabrielle Buffet), but from 1911 it was cemented by the Groupe de Puteaux that met in the studio of Jacques Villon, and included Villon's brother Marcel Duchamp, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and the painters Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Louis Marcoussis, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, and Fernand Léger.

Polish wood engravers: Wladislaw Skoczylas and his influence

Wladislaw Skoczylas (1883-1934) is considered the father of modern Polish wood engraving, and most of the other artists in this post studied under him. Skoczylas studied at the art academy in Krakow, the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, and in the Paris studio of Émile-Antoine Bourdelle. From 1910 he devoted a large part of his work to etching, and from 1923 turned from etching to specialize in wood engraving. From 1928 Wladislaw Skoczylas taught at the Department of the Graphic Arts in the Applied Art School in Warsaw, where he inspired and influenced a whole generation of Polish wood engravers. Skoczylas exhibited in the show Art Polonais at the 1921 Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and was kept in public eye in France by exhibitions of his wood engravings at the Galerie Zak. Skoczylas also continued to paint throughout his career, and regularly exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, of which he was a member.

Wladislaw Skoczylas, Brigands pour un trésor

Wood engraving, black-and-white state, 1924

Wladislaw Skoczylas, Brigands pour un trésor

Wood engraving, coloured state, 1924

Wladislaw Skoczylas, Saint-Christophe

Wood engraving, 1929

Wladislaw Skoczylas, Baruch

Wood engraving, 1929

Bogna Krasnodebska-Gardowska (1900-1986) was certainly a pupil of Skoczylas. She specialised in religious subjects.

Bogna Krasnodebska-Gardowska, L'Apocalypse

Wood engraving, 1929

My sole engraving by Stefan Mrozewski (1894-1975) is also a religious subject (the entombment of Christ); Mrozewski's most important work is considered his series of 101 large engravings for Dante's Divine Comedy, on which he laboured for 32 years. Stefan Mrozewski was born in Czestochowa, Poland, in 1894. Although he showed early talent as an artist, his modest family circumstances initially prevented him from studying art. In 1920 he served in a cartographic unit in the Polish-Soviet war. Afterwards, he attended several art schools, notably studying wood engraving and etching under Wladislaw Skoczylas at the Applied Art School in Warsaw. From 1925-32 Stefan Mrozewski lived in Paris, where he exhibited at various Salons and at the Galerie Bonaparte. His reputation in Paris was such that Pierre Mornand devoted a chapter to his work in Vingt-deux artistes du livre. From 1933-35 Mrozewski lived in Amsterdam, and from 1935-37 in London. He returned to Poland only to find his homeland invaded by the Nazis; Stefan Mrozewski was active in the Polish Resistance, putting his graphic skills to good use. After Poland was swallowed up by the Soviet Union in 1945, Mrozewski made his escape, first to familiar France and Holland, and then in 1951 to the USA, where he lived and worked until his death in Walnut Creek, California, in 1975.

Stefan Mrozewski, Mise au tombeau

Wood engraving, 1929

Edmund Ludwik Bartlomiejczyk (1895-1950) was more of a contemporary of Skoczylas than a student, and in fact Bartlomiejczyk also had a considerable influence on wood engraving in Poland, in his role as a professor at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. Like Skoczylas, he took inspiration from Polish folk art, as in this fine engraving of a peasant playing the bagpipes.

Edmund Bartlomiejczk, Le joueur de cornemuse

Wood engraving, 1929

The same folk art influence can be seen in the work of Zygmunt Kaminski, who drew particularly on the Polish paper-cut tradition. Kaminski (1888-1969) illustrated the novel Chlopi by Wladyslaw Reymont with original woodcuts in this folk art style. He lived and worked in Warsaw. In 1921 Zygmunt Kaminski exhibited at the Exposition des Artistes Polonais organised by the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Zygmunt Kaminski, Chlopi

Wood engraving, 1931

The painter, sculptor, stage director, and printmaker Zbigniew Pronaszko (1885-1958) was born in Zychlin; his younger brother Andrzei Pronaszko was also a significant Polish artist. Zbigniew Pronaszko studied in Krakow under J. Melczevski, and also in Munich. In 1928 he exhibited four canvases in the Polish section of the Salon d'Automne in Paris, bringing his art into the international arena.

Zbigniew Pronaszko, Illustration for 10 Ballad O Powsinogach Beskidzkich

Wood engraving, 1931

Although many of the artists discussed so far drew on folk art, they did so from an educated perspective. My last Polish wood engraver was a true outsider artist. The sculptor and printmaker Jedrzej Wowro (sometimes spelled Vowro) was born in Gorzeniu Dolnym in 1864. Jerdzej Wowro was an entirely self-taught folk artist. Born into a humble farming family, he remained illiterate. Jedrzej Wowro worked in coal mines, mills, and as a lumberjack. It was after being buried in a mine collapse that he returned to Gorzeniu and married Mary Guzek, who was literate, and who introduced him to stories of the saints who appear in much of his work. In 1923 his second wife Marianna Pin took some of his sculptures to the local manor house and showed them to the writer and champion of expressionism Emil Zegadlowicz. From that moment, Zegadlowicz became Jedrzej Wowro's patron, encouraging others to buy his work, and commissioning 20 woodcuts between 1925 and 1933. After that Wowro, now internationally known, was too ill to work. He died at the age of 73 in 1937.

Jerdzej Wowro, Ballada O Swiatkarzu

Wood engraving, 1931

Animal grace: Norbertine Bresslern Roth

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth was born Norbertine Roth in Graz, Austria, in 1891, Bresslern-Roth was one of the pre-eminent linocut artists of the twentieth century, and one of the first to truly explore the possibilities of the medium. Her work had a profound influence on later linocut artists such as Lill Tschudi, while her own choice of subjects (chiefly animals and birds) and compositional style were influenced by the art of L. H. Jungnickel. Charles at Modern Printmakers has an excellent post on Bresslern-Roth, in which he is slightly dismissive of her as essentially an imitator of Ludwig Jungnickel, and while I think it is true that she derived a great deal from him, I do believe her work has its own strengths. Pre-eminent among these is her ability to capture a sense of motion and energy in a static image. "Kampf", her energetic depiction of a fight-to-the-death between a lobster and an octopus is a striking case in point.

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Kampf

Linocut, 1923

Bresslern-Roth studied under Alfred von Schrötter at the Graz Academy, then under Ferdinand Schmutzer at the Vienna Academy, and finally at Hans Hajek's school for animal painting in Dachau. Norbertine Bresslern-Roth then returned to Graz, where she lived for the rest of her life. Although she had exhibited with the Vienna Secession from 1912, Norbertine Bresslern-Roth essentially stood aside from the artistic currents of her time. A trip to North Africa in 1928 profoundly influenced her subsequent subject matter and colouring. Her linocuts are very richly inked, and the colours positively glisten from the page. My other prints by, or after, Bresslern-Roth are a series of these linocuts reproduced as lithographic facsimiles. In these, the colours, while true, have a dusty feel in comparison to  the glowing quality of the original linocuts. But they are still powerful and attractive, and I add some to this post to give a more balanced view of her output than "Kampf" alone. The lithographs were made for the book Linolschnitte von Norbertine Bresslern-Roth by Alphons Poller (1926). Bresslern-Roth evidently authorized them, but how closely she was involved beyond that is not clear. Quite probably she would have approved the proofs.

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Baviane

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Feuersalamander

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Fischer

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Flucht

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Galago

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Reiher

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Überfall

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Ura

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Urishirsche

Lithograph after a linocut, 1926

Although she lived until 1978, Norbertine Bresslern-Roth's era was the 1920s and 30s. In 1930, for instance, she was selected as the subject of the seventh monograph in the series Masters of the Colour Print edited by Malcolm C. Salaman and published by The Studio. As well as Salaman's rather gushing text, this had eight tipped-in colour plates (screened four-colour reproductions). This was probably the high point of her international fame, though her art has come back into focus recently through the close attention paid to it in the blogs Modern Printmakers and Art and the Aesthete.

Pierre Dubreuil and Hans Gött: two pupils of Henri Matisse

While most of Henri Matisse's close relationships with other artists were as friend and colleague, sharing ideas and going on joint painting expeditions (for instance in Collioure with Derain in 1906, in Tangier with Marquet and Camoin in 1912, in La Goulette with Étienne Bouchaud in 1926), he also had various formal and informal master-pupil relationships. Most notably, between 1908 and 1912 he ran the Académie Matisse. Many of the students there were Scandinavian, of whom the stars were Sigrid Hjertén, Isaac Grünewald and Per Krohg, but there were also Americans (Max Weber, Alfred Maurer), Germans (Hans Purrmann) and even Britons (Matthew Smith). At this time Matisse had much more respect internationally than he commanded at home, and there was a notable lack of French students at the Académie Matisse. One young French artist who did attend was Pierre Dubreuil. I'm prompted to write about him because of the almost simultaneous acquisition of his engraving Sarah la baigneuse, and the etching Schlafendes Mädchen by Hans Gött. Two sensuous reclining nudes, both resonating with Matisse's vision of an art of luxe, calme, et volupté. Gött was not a student at the Académie Matisse, but instead benefited from informal lessons in Matisse's atelier in 1919.

Pierre Dubreuil, Sarah la baigneuse

Engraving, 1930

Pierre Dubreuil was born in Quimper, Brittany, in 1891. After initial studies in Vannes, and three months at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Dubreuil entered the Académie Matisse in 1908, and remained there until Matisse dissolved the school in spring 1912. His artistic career was stalled by World War One. First military service and then war mobilization stole seven years from his artistic development. Dubreuil did not exhibit until 1921, after which he was a regular at the Salons des Artistes Indépendants, d'Automne, and des Tuileries. As a printmaker, his preferred medium was the copper engraving, though he also produced drypoints, etchings, and wood engravings. He was president of the Société des Peintres-Graveurs Français, and a member of the Peintres-Graveurs Indépendants.

Pierre Dubreuil, On n'est pas heureux qu'avec une bonne femme 

Engraving, 1930

As well as painting and printmaking, Pierre Dubreuil painted murals and designed tapestries, and illustrated a number of books, including works by Restif de la Bretonne, Paul Valéry, Hugues Rebell, and Henri de Regnier. Alongside Matisse, he contributed original prints to the two great collaborative livres d'artiste of the 1930s and 40s, Paris 1937 and Alternance.

Pierre Dubreuil, La Double Maîtresse

Wood engraving, 1930

In 1944 Dubreuil illustrated La Nichina, a novel by the dissolute Hugues Rebell about a sixteenth-century Venetian courtisan, with numerous engravings. The book was published in a fairly large edition of 970 copies, of which 930 were on vélin de Rives, and 40 on vergé de Hollande. The 40 on Hollande laid paper also had a supplementary suite of the engravings, printed in sanguine on china paper. The engravings were printed by Paul Haasen.

Pierre Dubreuil, La Nichina (reclining)

Engraving, 1944

Examples in sanguine on chine and in black on vergé de Hollande

Pierre Dubreuil, Venice, Campanile di San Marco

Engraving, 1944

Pierre Dubreuil, Venice

Engraving, 1944

Pierre Dubreuil, Au soleil levant

Engraving, 1944

Pierre Dubreuil, Filles déguisées en page

Engraving, 1944

Pierre Dubreuil died in Paris in 1970. In 1991 J.-P. Zingg published the first monograph on his work, Pierre Dubreuil. Female bathers were one of his most consistent themes, culminating in a series of paintings between 1941 and 1957 of nude bathers discreetly shadowed beneath trees.

Hans Gött, Schlafendes Mädchen

Etching, 1924

Hans Gött (sometimes spelled Hanns Gött) was born in 1883. He is known as a painter of women, especially nudes and intimate portraits in domestic settings. This is not surprising as, after studying at the Munich Academy, Hans Gött went to Paris in 1919 to study in the atelier of Henri Matisse, whose work remained a strong influence on Gött's art.

Hans Gött, Ars Amatoria I (Romulus with a Sabine woman)

Lithograph, 1920

Hans Gött, Ars Amatoria II (Pasiphae and the bull)

Lithograph, 1920

Hans Gött, Ars Amatoria IV (Daedalus and Icarus)

Lithograph, 1920

Hans Gött, Ars Amatoria VII (Lovers)

Lithograph, 1920

Hans Gött, Remedia Amoris II (Phyllis)

Lithograph, 1920

As a printmaker, Hans Gött worked in both etching and lithography. Among his lithographs are ten made for an edition of Ovid's Ars Amatoria published in 1920; on the title page the artist is credited as Hanns Gött. These witty lithographs show the influence of Matisse's line, though in my view they are too much in thrall to line, and make poor use of lithography's tonal effects. It's as if the artist was expecting to illustrate the text in etching. Hans Gött lived and worked in Munich, and died in 1973.