Lot 429: Henri Le Fauconnier (French, 1881-1946)

Henri Le Fauconnier (French, 1881-1946)
Le songe du vagabond: Naissance; Songe; Mort
oil on canvas; triptych
central canvas: 53¼ x 53¼ in. (135 x 135 cm.)
side canvases: 53 x 30¼ in. (134.6 x 76.8 cm.) each
Painted circa 1917-1918

Amsterdam, Kunstzaal de Bijenkorf, Het Signaal, 1919.
Amsterdam, Kunsthandel C.L.H. van der Linden, Werken van Le Fauconnier, 1919.
Altenburg, Lindenau-Museum, Internationale Sprachen der Kunst: Gemälde, Zeichnungen und Skulpturen der Klassischen Moderne aus der Sammlung Hoh, August - October 1998, no. 54 (illustrated p. 149); this exhibition later travelled to Osnabrück, Kulturgeschichtliches Museum Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, Dortmund, Museum am Ostwall and Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

C.L.H. van der Linden (ed.), Le Fauconnier, Amsterdam, 1920 (illustrated).
F.M. Huebner, Moderne Kunst in den Privatsammlungen Europas, vol. I, Holland, Leipzig & Amsterdam, 1921, p. 64 (titled 'La vie du vagabond').
F.M. Huebner, 'Le Fauconnier', in Der Cicerone, no. 14 (titled 'La vie du vagabond').
Exh. cat., Henri Le Fauconnier, Kubisme en Expressionisme in Europa, Haarlem, 1993, pp. 114-115 (illustrated).
U. Peters & A. Legde, Kulturgeschichtliche Spaziergänge im
Germanischen Nationalmuseum, Moderne Zeiten, die Sammlung zum
20.Jahrhundert, vol. III, Nuremberg, 2000 (illustrated p. 52).

W. Beffie, Amsterdam.
Crane Kalman Gallery, London.
H. Ishizuka, by whom acquired from the above in March 1972.
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 2 December 1991, lot 126.
Galerie Berinson, Berlin.
On loan to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, since 1996.

PROPERTY FROM THE HOH COLLECTION
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Having studied in the atelier of Jean-Paul Laurens, Le Fauconnier first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1904. Briefly a follower of Matisse whilst in the Breton fishing village of Ploumanac'h, he returned to Paris, installing himself in a studio as 'a disciple of Cézanne'. An intellectual figure, in 1910 he joined with Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay and others to form the Puteaux Group, an offshoot of the cubist movement, also called the Section d'Or (The Golden Section). Exhibiting at the infamous Salon des Indépendants in 1911, it was the Puteaux cubists who initially became the public face of cubism. By 1913 Le Fauconnier had broken his ties with cubism and turned towards his own idiosyncratic form of expressionism. Exempt from military service, Le Fauconnier founded the artistic movement 'Het Signaal' with Piet van Wijngaerdt in 1916 in the Netherlands. With his earlier experiences in Paris, Le Fauconnier was the most influential member of the group that included Arnout Colnot and Lodewijk Schelfhout.

Le Fauconnier confirmed his central position in 'Het Signaal' by contributing 25 works to their inaugural 1916 exhibition with Le songe du vagabond being the acknowledged masterpiece. Only the central canvas was exhibited, with the left and right hand canvases being added a year later, demonstrating Le Fauconnier's pre-occupation with the depravity of war. A feeling of 'non-belonging' pervades the work, depicting a world of hatred and the social misery of unrealized dreams. Read from left to right as a narrative, Le Songe reverberates with Christian morals and portents. Historically the triptych has been used as a method to convey the path of life from birth to death. The 'Birth' on the left hand canvas takes place in a sparse, impoverished chamber, heavy with Christian iconography and allegorical references. The central 'Dream' canvas occurs in the dazzling world of the circus with the artist representing himself in the lying figure in the foreground beneath a confusing pictorial space crowded by swirling equestriennes and clowns. 'Death' on the right hand canvas sees two murderous figures embroiled in conflict in an apocalyptic landscape of charred trees and circling black birds.