Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958)
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Maurice de Vlaminck belonged to a troupe of artists known as the Fauves (which translates in French as Beasts.) The Fauves reign lasted for ten years during the turn of the century in France, and Vlaminck exhibited his work at their gallery the Salon des Independants and d’Automne. Their style of painting was reflective of impressionism, though much wilder, and almost animal like in nature. These artists used pure saturated color straight, un-mixed and right from the package. Fauve painters would paint in an aggressive manner, leaving brush strokes and globs of paint in their wake. This method of painting would result in what some critics would call a messy, yet powerful scene.
While Vlaminck was most fond of his work as an artist, he was also an author, a poet, a professional musician (violin) and a professional athlete (cycling) in his lifetime. However, before he became a painter who utilized brilliant colors, Vlaminck was a printer who worked in black and white.
It is said that one may easily recognize the work of Vlaminck by simply searching for little clues. His favorite subjects seemed to be of the organic kind; bouquets of flowers, the French countryside, the sea, forests and agriculture. If people appear in any of Vlaminck’s landscape pictures, they are usually given less detail than the flora in the painting, and are not dominant. However, even in his nude paintings (ie, the Bathers, 1908), Vlaminck still gave more detail and life to the back ground objects than to the people.
So how can you tell if you own a Vlaminck or a Fauvist painting? For one thing, note the dates and the signatures of the piece in question. If you have a painting that was painted in France from 1898 to 1908, using brilliant, un-mixed colors and unstructured wild strokes, you may have an original Fauve work.
To determine whether or not you have a Vlaminck may be a bit harder. For starters, anything done before 1898 that is not a black and white lithograph is probably not a Vlaminck. It was not until he met with the Fauves that he began to use color, so look for black and white lithographs of country scenes. Toward the end of his career (the mid to late fifties), Vlaminck aslo went back to creating black and white country scenes, yet these were more refined and often done in ink, rather than as prints. If you are still left with any doubt, look for his trademarked straight line signature. While these may be harder to find on his paintings, they are almost always apparent in his lithographs and prints.
To have a Vlaminck piece that was painted during his Fauvist period is a great treasure, if it is an original. For example, look at The Remorqueur (1905), a painting done near the end of the Fauve period. At this time, artists such as Cezanne were beginning to experiment with cubism, a more regimented style of painting. This can be seen in The Remourqueur., reflected in the tree trunk, the leaves and the water. Maurice de Vlaminck’s style and form changed along with the changing of styles, and while he always kept an impressionistic “beast-like” way of painting, he incorporated other styles according to what was popular at the time.
Other common examples of Vlaminck’s work can be seen is his French village scenes. Vlaminck was fond of roads, and used them often as seen here in the appropriately titled “La Route” (the Road, 1957). At this point, his colors were not nearly as saturated and his brush strokes much less fierce as he had become departed from the Fauve style by this time.
Paintings by Vlaminck are a staple in all major museum collections. While Vlaminck’s style may be easily emulated, by looking at certain clues (Does this look like the orange, yellow and green French countryside? Is the focus more about the organic elements, or people and buildings?) One can decide on their own if they have a Fauvist master piece, or a fake. In 2002, a Vlaminck painting brought in around $5 million dollars, the most ever paid for one of his works. Still wondering about a colorful, wildly painting hanging in your home? Contact us…it could be by Maurice de Vlaminck.
