André Derain
(France 1880–1954)
Still life
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
This example of the latter genre is particularly grand and impressive, a major work of its period. Once the fiery leader of the fauves, an early champion of primitive art and a contender for modernist pre-eminence, Derain made the first of his many stylistic backflips around 1910. When Picasso and Braque were at their most experimental, he chose to investigate early Renaissance art as exemplified in the classical values of order, harmony and detachment. From the 1920s his work was regarded as conservative by his contemporaries, though it coincided with the 'return to order' that characterised post-war European culture. Derain is now regarded as a postmodernist before the fact. Some of his figural and still life subjects influenced painters in the 1980s.Recalling an altar set with ritual items, Derain presents his simple objects with a sacramental sense of their placement and interrelation.
AGNSW Handbook, 1999.
- Year
- 1921-1922
- Media
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 87.2 x 124.5cm stretcher; 125.5 x 153.5 x 8.0cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed l.r., black oil "A. Derain". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1987
- Accession number
- 355.1987
- Copyright
- © Andre Derain/ADAGP. Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia
- Provenance
- Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York (United States of America), circa 1967-20 Mar 1987, New York/New York/United States of America, Purchased by the AGNSW from Allan Frumkin Gallery 1987. Lent by Allan Frumkin Gallery to the 1967 exhibitions 'Derain' at the Royal Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy.
H.J.P. Bomford (England, d.1978), circa 1944, Wiltshire/England, by 1944, lent by Bomford to the 1944 exhibition 'Paintings of the French School from a private collection' at Temple Newsam House. Bomford a London stockbroker, moved to Aldbourne, Wiltshire in 1938 purchasing 2000 acres of farmland. His success at farming due to the outbreak of the Second World War and the demand for food enabled him to pursue his interests in buying and selling art.
