Maurice de Vlaminck

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(b Paris, 5 April 1876; d Rueil-la-Gadeli?re, Eure-et-Loir, 7 Oct 1958). French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and writer. His nature, character, tastes and way of life were in perfect harmony with the freedom, daring and violence of his painting. He was brought up in a musical environment: his father, of Flemish origin, was a violin teacher and his mother, from Lorraine, was a piano teacher. He studied music himself to quite a high standard and later played the double-bass (and sometimes the bass drum, a source of considerable pleasure) in his regimental band. His family had come to live at Le V?sinet near Paris, and he spent his childhood both there and later at Chatou on the Seine. From 1892 he began to take an interest in painting, though he worked as a mechanic and became a racing cyclist.

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The French painter Maurice Vlaminck (1876-1958) was one of the great Fauves, artists who stressed the primacy of pure color. In his later work he moved toward a kind of expressive realism.

The son of a Flemish father and a French mother from Lorraine, Maurice Vlaminck was born in Paris on April 4, 1876, and grew up in the suburb of Le Vésinet. Both his parents were musicians, and at the age of 16 Vlaminck moved to Chatou near Paris and earned his living as a violinist and a bicycle racer. In 1894 he married and started a large family. He learned to draw from J. L. Robichon, and at Chatou he worked with Henri Rigal.

Vlaminck was one of the most colorful personalities among French artists. A person of great vitality, he was self-willed, radical, and independent. Very Flemish in temperament, he admired folk art, naive imagery, and African sculpture and was against all schools and academies.

In 1900 the young painter André Derain and Vlaminck shared a studio in Chatou. The decisive event in Vlaminck's artistic development was the large exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh's work in 1901 in Paris. Shortly afterward Vlaminck met Claude Monet and Henri Matisse.

In 1905 Vlaminck, encouraged by Matisse, exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, at the Berthe Weill gallery, and in the famous "Fauvist zoo" at the Salon d'Automne. Fauve means wild beast, and nobody was wilder in his brushwork and his palette than Vlaminck. Typical canvases of his Fauve period are the Gardens of Chatou (1904), Picnic in the Country (1905), and Circus (1906).

In 1908 Vlaminck's style changed, and under the influence of Paul Cézanne's work he aimed at well-constructed compositions. This is exemplified in Barges (1908-1910) and The Flood, Ivry (1910). About 1915 Vlaminck entered his expressionist phase, characterized by earthy colors and simplified forms. He painted landscapes, portraits, and still lifes with impetuous brushwork. In 1919 a large exhibition of his work took place in Paris.

Vlaminck lived in Anvers-sur-Oise from 1920 to 1925, when he moved to Rueil-la-Gadelie‧re, where he died on Oct. 11, 1958. His late work continued to be in the expressive realist manner. The landscapes, such as Hamlet in the Snow (1943), have a heavily textured brushstroke and are charged with emotion.

Further Reading

Pierre MacOrlan, Vlaminck (1958), has fine color plates defining the artist's stylistic development. Patrick Heron, Vlaminck: Paintings, 1900-1945 (1948), offers an analysis and assessment by a painter. Jacques Perry, Maurice Vlaminck (1957), reproduces personal photographs by Roger Hauert. For background material on the Fauvist movement see Georges Duthuit, The Fauvist Painters (1950), and Jean Paul Crespelle, The Fauves (1962).

Vlaminck, Maurice de (1876-1958). French Fauvist painter who experimented as a novelist. In words and paint some unevenness of result can be ascribed to a volatile and anarchic temperament. He was influenced by Van Gogh in his use of bold—even strident—colour, impasto, gestural brushwork, and rushing perspective. However, Vlaminck's work is less well resolved, particularly the post-Fauvist, more expressionist paintings. The recurrent motif of an empty street or road in perspective fuyante has a haunting but slightly facile quality, and his calligraphic strokes are sometimes insufficiently founded. In Portraits avant décès (1943), which include Max Jacob, Jarry, Derain, Vollard, and Picasso, his remarks on Apollinaire typify his range: gossip, overstatement, occasional discernment.

[Helen Beale]

Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck. The River Seine at Chatou, 1906
Born	4 April 1876(1876-04-04) Paris, France
Died	11 October 1958 (aged 82)
Nationality	French
Field	Painting

Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color.^[1]

Contents 1 Life 2 Artistic career 3 Artistic influences 4 Notes and references 5 External links

Life

Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family of musicians. His father taught him to play the violin.^[2] He began painting in his late teens. In 1893, he studied with a painter named Henri Rigalon on the Ile de Chatou.^[3] In 1894 he married Suzanne Berly. The turning point in his life was a chance meeting on the train to Paris towards the end of his stint in the army. Vlaminck, then 23, met an aspiring artist, André Derain, with whom he struck up a life-long friendship.^[2] When Vlaminck completed his army service in 1900, the two rented a studio together for a year before Derain left to do his own military service.^[2] In 1902 and 1903 he wrote several mildly pornographic novels illustrated by Derain.^[4] He painted during the day and earned his livelihood by giving violin lessons and performing with musical bands at night.^[2]

In 1911, Vlaminck traveled to London and painted by the Thames. In 1913, he painted again with Derain in Marseille and Martigues. In World War I he was stationed in Paris, and began writing poetry. Eventually he settled in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. He married his second wife, Berthe Combes, with whom he had two daughters. From 1925 he traveled throughout France, but continued to paint primarily along the Seine, near Paris.

Vlaminck died in Rueil-la-Gadelière on 11 October 1958.

Artistic career

Portrait du poète (Guillaume Apollinaire) 1903

Two of Vlaminck's groundbreaking paintings, Sur le zinc (At the Bar) and L'homme a la pipe (Man Smoking a Pipe) were painted in 1900.^[2]

For the next few years Vlaminck lived in or near Chatou (the inspiration for his painting houses at Chatou), painting and exhibiting alongside Derain, Matisse, and other Fauvist painters. At this time his exuberant paint application and vibrant use of color displayed the influence of Vincent van Gogh. Sur le zinc called to mind the work of Toulouse-Lautrec and his portrayals of prostitutes and solitary drinkers, but does not attempt to probe the sitter's psychology—a break with the century-old European tradition of individualized portraiture.^[2] According to art critic Souren Melikian, it is "the impersonal cartoon of a type."^[2] In his landscape paintings, his approach was similar. He ignored the details, with the landscape becoming a mere excuse to express mood through violent color and brushwork.^[2] An example is Sous bois, painted in 1904. The following year, he began to experiment with "deconstruction," turning the physical world into dabs and streaks of color that convey a sense of motion.^[2] His paintings Le Pont de Chatou (The Chatou Bridge), Les Ramasseurs de pommes de terre (The Potato Pickers), La Seine a Chatou (The River Seine at Chatou) and Le Verger (The Orchard) exemplify this trend.^[2]

Artistic influences

Vlaminck's compositions show familiarity with the Impressionists, several of whom had painted in the same area in the 1870s and 1880s. After visiting a van Gogh exhibit, he declared that he "loved van Gogh that day more than my own father".^[5] From 1908 his palette grew more monochromatic, and the predominant influence was that of Cézanne.^[4] His later work displayed a dark palette, punctuated by heavy strokes of contrasting white paint.

Notes and references

1. ^ Freeman, Judi, et al. The Fauve Landscape, pp.13–14. Abbeville Press, 1990. ISBN 1-55859-025-0
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Melikian, Souren. "Vlaminck: Expressing mood with color", International Herald Tribune, 11 July 2008. Retrieved 13 July 2008.
3. ^ Freeman, page 319.
4. ^ ^{a b} Freeman, p.319.
5. ^ Freeman, pp.15-21

External links

• Maurice de Vlaminck on artnet
• Maurice de Vlaminck - Biography
• Works by Maurice de Vlaminck (public domain in Canada)

v • d • e Fauvism Leaders Henri Matisse · André Derain Others Alice Bailly · Georges Braque · Charles Camoin · Kees van Dongen · Raoul Dufy · Henri Evenepoel · Othon Friesz · Henri Manguin · Albert Marquet · Jean Puy · Georges Rouault · Maurice de Vlaminck Paintings Green Stripe · Woman with a Hat Influences Paul Cezanne · Paul Gauguin · Vincent van Gogh · Gustave Moreau (teacher) · Georges Seurat · Paul Signac · Neo-impressionism · Pointillism Influenced Die Brücke · Neo-Fauvism See also Louis Vauxcelles (critic)

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