Henri MARTIN (1860 - 1943)

Lot 23
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Estimation :
60000 - 80000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 156 000EUR
Henri MARTIN (1860 - 1943)
Vue de Labastide-du-Vert au printemps depuis le parc de Marquayrol, vers 1910 Oil on canvas Oil on canvas 60 x 75 cm - 23 5/8 x 29 1/2 in. A certificate from Mr Cyrille Martin, dated 3 November 2003, will be given to the buyer. PROVENANCE - Private collection (acquired from the artist and then by descent) - Sale, Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie's, Paris, November 28, 2012, lot 10 "The "cantor of the Lot": it is this epithet which, for many amateurs, best sums up the art of Henri Martin who, through an abundant production, knew how to reveal the beauties of the Quercy. It is moreover from the purchase, in 1900, of a secondary residence in Labastide-du-Vert that one traditionally situates his abandonment of symbolism and purely literary references, and the definitive adoption of a frankly impressionist touch. [...] Confronted with a protean nature shaped by the light of the hours and the seasons, Henri Martin empirically sought the best way to share his emotion with the viewer. This is how he wrote "After three months spent in the countryside, face to face with nature, the full, bright, diffuse light compelled me to translate it by dotting and decomposing the tone". Henri Martin is therefore not a theorist of impressionism or pointillism, but an artist who finds a form of sincerity in a free, swirling touch. He paints in the open air on the ground and, one could say, in the ground. In Labastide, we see him leave in the early morning, wearing clogs to protect his shoes from the dew, loaded with his equipment, to criss-cross the surroundings and discover new points of view on the village and the valley. [...] It is first in Labastide that Henri Martin deploys his art. His movements in concentric circles gradually led him to widen his field of study: his house in Marquayrol, then the village, the "purple hillsides with tender greens and unheard-of blues", and the Vert valley. Each place offers singular motifs that the painter tirelessly exploits and combines each time by varying the angle of view, the vanishing point, the lighting." Sabine Maggiani, ""Le poète s'en va dans les champs": Henri Martin paysagiste", in. Henri Martin (1860 - 1943), Du rêve au quotidien, Peintures conservées dans les collections publiques françaises, cat. expo, Milan : Silvana, 2008, p. 53
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