Bouguereau & America

The San Diego Museum of Art presents the traveling exhibition Bouguereau & America, featuring nearly 40 paintings by the popular French academic artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). On view now through March 15, 2020, this exhibition reexamines the work of this long-neglected artist and allows a view unencumbered by a modernist bias.

 

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Art and Literature, 1867. Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 × 42 1/2 in. Collection of the Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, New York USA

 

 

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Young Shepherdess, 1885. Oil on canvas mounted on board, 62 in. x 28 1/2 in. The San Diego Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin S. Larsen, 1968.82

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Young Girl Defending Herself from Eros, ca. 1880. Oil on canvas, 32 1/8 × 22 3/4 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Gift of J. Paul Getty, 70.PA.3

Bouguereau & America showcases the master’s traditional use of composition, form and subject matter, bringing to life paintings of goddesses, heroes, shepherdesses and nymphs, including the beloved work The Young Shepherdess (1885), drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition is the first in nearly 30 years to bring together many of the artist’s most important works, including A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros (ca. 1880); Art & Literature (1867); Homer and His Guide (1874); and Washerwomen of Fouesnant (1869).

Beginning from detailed pencil drawings and oil sketches, Bouguereau’s large-scale paintings placed an emphasis on the female body, while capturing the beauty and innocence of each of his subjects – noble peasants, young women and children. American art collectors and society’s wealthiest were drawn to Bouguereau’s style of work for his ability to portray the less fortunate in an idyllic and timeless setting, particularly during the late 1800s through the early 20th century during the rise of industrialization. Due to his remarkable popularity, Bouguereau’s work became fundamental in the formation of many U.S. art museums’ collections.
Despite having been sought after for his flawless technique and sensual themes, Bouguereau’s reputation declined with the introduction of Impressionism – the first modern art movement emphasizing an artist’s use of color, tone and texture and the practice of painting outdoors. Artists rebelled against the strictures and conventions of the academy that embraced Bouguereau, rejecting conventional or allegorical depictions of subject matter in mythological settings. The arc of Bouguereau’s rise and fall serves as a prime example of the power society has in shaping preferences in the art world.


 

 Bouguereau  Virgin of the Angels, 1881: Courtesy of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association

“Bouguereau & America showcases the remarkable popularity of one of the greatest artists from the late 19th century,” said Roxana Velásquez, Maruja Baldwin Executive Director of The San Diego Museum of Art. “Ostracized for nearly a century, this exhibition is an opportunity to view Bouguereau with a different lens, reflecting on how the shift in tastes, beliefs, morals, and desires of society shape the path of art.”



A full-color exhibition catalogue published by Yale University Press accompanies the exhibition. 192 pages, 10 x 12
114 color illus.
ISBN: 9780300241358
Hardcover

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905), Homer and His Guide (Homère et son guide), 1874. Oil on canvas. Layton Art Collection Inc., Gift of Frederick Layton L1888.5. Photographer credit: Larry Sanders.

 

•  William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905), Dream of Spring, 1901. Oil on canvas. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Gift of Melvin and Bren Simon 2013.33

 

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905), Washerwomen of Fouesnant, 1869. Oil on canvas. Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester: Bertha Buswell Bequest 55.61.

Bouguereau & America is co-organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Co-curators are Dr. Tanya Paul, Isabel and Alfred Bader Curator of European Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and Dr. Stanton Thomas, former Curator of European and Decorative Arts, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, now Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida.
At The San Diego Museum of Art, the site curator for Bouguereau & America is Dr. Michael Brown, the Museum’s Curator of European Art.

Catalogue

Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age

The first exhibition to explore the contributions of women artists during the Dutch Golden Age will be on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) from Oct. 11, 2019, to Jan. 5, 2020. Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age presents approximately 20 paintings and prints dating from 1610 through 1719 by eight successful artists in the Netherlands during the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Clara Peeters, Still Life of Fish and Cat, after 1620; Oil on panel, 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 in.;

National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

The Netherlands experienced unprecedented economic growth from the late 16th century through the first quarter of the 18th century. A rising middle class of wealthy merchants fueled demand for paintings and prints of still-lifes, portraits, and scenes of everyday life. By some estimates, there was one painter for every 2,000–3,000 inhabitants, a ratio exceeding that of Italy during the same period. While this era has been widely documented and studied, the many women artists who were part of this thriving scene are rarely included in museum exhibitions.

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 1 (from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, second edition), 1719; Hand-colored engraving on paper, 20 1/2 x 14 1/2 in.; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

In fact, to date, there has never been an exhibition devoted to the Dutch and Flemish women artists of the Golden Age. This is remarkable given the sheer scale of artistic production in the Netherlands during this period. Women artists thrived in this environment. Like those elsewhere in Europe, many Dutch and Flemish women were born into families of artists and received their training from fathers or brothers. However, some took the more traditionally “masculine” route of apprenticing with a recognized master and joining artistic guilds. Considering a group of these women together offers an opportunity to upend common assumptions and uncover surprising connections.

Anna Maria van Schurman, Self-Portrait, 1640; Engraving on paper, 8 1/2 x 6 3/8 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Featured artists include:

 

Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s; Oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 33 in.; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

 

 

A Still Life of Lilies, Roses, Iris, Pansies, Columbine, Love-in-a-Mist, Larkspur and other Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Table Top, Flanked by a Rose and a Carnation ca. 1610.

 

Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750), one of the most successful artists of this period, who is regarded as the greatest floral still-life painter of the Golden Age. Her prestigious career lasted a remarkable 70 years, and she sold work to an international circle of patrons.
Judith Leyster (1609–1660), one of the first women admitted to the painter’s guild in Haarlem, where she also took on her own students. A recently rediscovered self-portrait by Leyster is a highlight of the exhibition—it is on public view in the U.S. for the first time.



Clara Peeters (1594–1657?), a pioneer of still-life painting and the only Flemish woman known to have specialized in the genre as early as the first decade of the 17th century. Peeters was the artist who inspired NMWA founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay to begin collecting work by women artists.
Considered individually, the stories of the women represented in this exhibition reveal that there was not just one path to becoming an artist, nor was there only one model for success. Through a wider view encompassing each artist’s individual struggles and triumphs, a clearer and more nuanced picture of women artists during the Dutch Golden Age comes into focus.

“NMWA’s Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age—which focuses on women as creators and entrepreneurs rather than primarily the subjects of well-known paintings—is a crucial turning point in righting art historical records,” said NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “NMWA is committed to presenting exhibitions that challenge traditional views, expand our thinking about art history and rectify omissions of the past.”

Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts 
September 21, 2019–January 6, 2020

Bringing together nearly seventy works spanning the entirety of the artist’s career, this exhibition presents a fresh and eye-opening examination of Hans Hofmann’s prolific and innovative artistic practice. Featuring paintings and works on paper from 1930 through the end of Hofmann’s life in 1966, the exhibition includes numerous masterworks from BAMPFA’s distinguished collection as well as many seldom-seen works from both public and private collections across North America and Europe. The Nature of Abstraction provides new insight into Hofmann’s continuously experimental approach to painting and the expressive potential of color, form, and space, reconnecting many of the artist’s most iconic late-career paintings with dozens of remarkably robust, prescient, and understudied works from the 1930s and 1940s.

Hofmann was a multi-generational synthesis of student, artist, and teacher/mentor, whose singular artistic development and achievement manifested as a unique amalgamation of artistic influences and innovations that bridged two world wars and pan-Atlantic avant-gardes. Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction offers new audiences the chance to discover this magnificent body of work for the first time, and a fresh opportunity for those already familiar with the artist to experience new revelations across the full arc of his career.

BAMPFA holds the world’s most extensive museum collection of Hofmann’s paintings. In 1963, the German-born, American artist donated to the University of California nearly fifty paintings and a significant cash contribution toward the completion of BAMPFA’s first museum building, which opened in 1970. The artist made this extraordinary gift in recognition of the University’s decisive role in his immigration to America from Germany, allowing him to escape World War II and “start in America as a teacher and artist.”

Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog from UC Press featuring new scholarly perspectives from the exhibition’s curator Lucinda Barnes, Ellen G. Landau, and Michael Schreyach.

• 

  Painting

  Indian Summer

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1959
  oil on canvas
  60 1/8 x 72 1/4 in.
  BAMPFA, gift of the artist. Photo: Jonathan Bloom © The Regents of the University of California
  
  
• 

  Painting

  Cataclysm (Homage to Howard Putzel)

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1945
  oil and casein on board
  51 3/4 x 48 in.
  private collection. Photo courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; with permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  
  
• 

  Painting

  Goliath

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1960
  oil on canvas
  84 1/8 x 60 in.
  BAMPFA, gift of Hans Hofmann. Photo: Ben Blackwell © The Regents of the University of California
  
  
• 

  Painting

  Morning Mist

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1958
  oil on canvas
  55 1/8 x 40 3/8 in.
  BAMPFA, bequest of the artist. Photo: Ben Blackwell © The Regents of the University of California
  
  
• 

  Painting

  Sparks

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1957
  oil on canvas
  60 x 48 in.
  The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, bequest of Caroline Wiess Law; with permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  
  
• 

  Painting

  Atelier (Still Life, Table with White Vase)

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1938
  oil on panel
  60 x 48 1/2 in.
  Collection of Mrs. James A. Fisher, Pittsburgh. Photo: Tom Little Photography; with permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  
  

  

  In this untitled 1942 work, Hans Hofmann combines the influence of Cézanne with Fauvism. Photo: Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society, Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society

  
  

  

  Hans Hofmann’s “Exaltment” is a 1947 work that shows him trying out surrealism. Photo: Addison Gallery of American Art / Phillips Academy / Art Resource, NY, Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society

  
  

  

  “The Wind” is a 1942 work by Hans Hofmann, made by dripping paint directly on the canvas. Photo: Ben Blackwell, University of California

  

  Hans Hofmann, “Auxerre” (1960) Photo: Christie, Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society

  
  

  

  Hans Hofmann, “The Vanquished” (1959) Photo: Jonathan Bloom, University of California

  

  Hans Hofmann, “In the Wake of the Hurricane” (1960) Photo: Jonathan Bloom, University of California

Christie’s Latin American Art November Sales NOVEMBER 20, 21

Christie’s announces the fall season of Latin American Art with the live auction taking place November 20 and 21 and an online auction running November 16-26. As the only major auction house with dedicated sales in the category, this season offers a comprehensive selection from 17^th and 18^th-century Spanish colonial painting through modern and contemporary masterpieces. Together the sales expect to realize in excess of $25 million. Featured are works from private collections including The James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation, The Collection of Dr. Helga Prignitz-Poda, The Collection of Richard L. Weisman, and Divine Splendor: Spanish Colonial Art from The Collection of James Li. Works from the live and online auctions will be on view November 16-20 at Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza.

  FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954), The Flower Basket, oil on copper, 25 in. (64.1 cm.) copper plate, 31 in. (80 cm.) framed, diameter, Painted in 1941. Estimate: $3,000,000-5,000,000; 

Leading the sale are two stunning works by Frida Kahlo including The Flower Basket (estimate: $3 – 5 million) from The James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection. Painted in 1941, this tondo, or circular-shaped painting on copper, is one of two such still lifes painted by Kahlo in the same year. The pendant work hangs in the Casa Azul, the artist’s museum in Mexico City. First acquired from Kahlo by actress Paulette Goddard — a friend of both the artist and her husband painter Diego Rivera — The Flower Basket has since been privately held and lent for exhibitions on only very limited occasions. This exuberant and colorful painting celebrates Kahlo’s love of nature as well as a particularly happy moment of her life, as she and Rivera had just remarried after a brief divorce.

FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954), Portrait of a Lady in White, oil on canvas, 46 x 32 in. (118.1 x 81.3 cm.), Painted circa 1929. Estimate: $3,000,000-5,000,000

Rare and never-before offered at auction, Frida Kahlo’s Portrait of a Lady in White (estimate: $3 – 5 million) from The Collection of Dr. Helga Prignitz-Poda, is an outstanding oil on canvas painted around the time of the artist’s marriage to Rivera in 1929. Always held in private collections, this alluring portrait was initially gifted by Kahlo to the esteemed Mexican photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo. It has generally been accepted that the sitter in this elegant portrait was Dorothy Brown Fox, an American friend of the artist. However, recent research suggests that this enigmatic woman may be Elena Boder, a Russian émigré, influential doctor, and high school friend of Kahlo’s.

Christie’s is also honored to offer Property From The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation, featuring works by the widely-revered Mexican master Francisco Toledo.

 

A standout is El elefante (estimate: $800,000 – 1,200,000), an exceptional painting that showcases the artist’s tremendous skill and unique vision. Proceeds from the sales will benefit the late philanthropist’s eponymous foundation and The Harlem Children's Zone.

 

Fernando Botero (B. 1932), Tablao flamenco, oil on canvas, 79 x 79 in. (201.3 x 202.6 cm.), Painted in 1984. Estimate: $1,500,000-2,000,000; The James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection,

Another highlight of the sale is Fernando Botero’s Tablao flamenco (estimate: $1.5 – 2 million). Executed in 1984, this work is one of the most important paintings by the artist to come to auction in recent years. Complementing this piece is a robust selection of works by the Colombian master that includes paintings, drawings and exquisite sculptures ranging from tabletop to large-scale.


Additional highlights include and early 1925 composition by Rufino Tamayo, The Family (estimate: $600,000-800,000), Tomás Sánchez’s haunting Orilla con meditador oculto (estimate: $200,000 – 300,000), and an iconic façade painting by Brazilian artist, Alfredo Volpi, Untitled (Fachada) (estimate: $350,000 – 450,000).

Freeman’s American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction December 8

On December 8, Freeman’s will hold its highly anticipated biannual American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction. As ever, the sale will feature works by distinguished American artists including illustrators N.C. Wyethand Norman Rockwell, Hudson River School painters Jasper Cropsey and Louis Rémy Mignot, as well as Philadelphians Mary Cassattand William Glackens. Also on offer will be works by famed Pennsylvania Impressionists Daniel Garber, Fern Coppedge and Edward Redfield.

Sale Highlights



An undeniable frontrunner of the auction will be N.C. Wyeth’s Rebel Jerry and Yankee Jake,(Lot 62; $200,000-300,000) a 1931 oil depicting a ferocious knife fight between two twin brothers. The painting served as an illustration for John Fox, Jr.’s The Little Shepherd from Kingdom Come, a best-selling novel published by the renowned publishing company Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1903. Set in the vast Kentucky mountains during the American Civil War, the oil captures the highly anticipated fight between the Dillon brothers, who grew estranged as one embraced the Union’s side, and the other chose to remain a Rebel and fight alongside the South.



Another notable highlight from the Pennsylvania Impressionists section of the sale is Daniel Garber’s By the River(Lot 138; $200,000-300,000), a dazzling view of the Delaware River executed in 1929. Long unrecorded, the work resurfaces from a collection in Arkansas with a prestigious provenance. It represents a pivotal work for the artist and an importantstylistic change in Garber’s career, marked by a new level of sophistication in his use of color and light, and by a bold taste for highly structured compositions.

Among the many 19th century pieces on offer, the sale will also showcase a sizable section of Modern works from the mid-20thcentury, including a surrealist scene



by Peter Blume (Lot 87; $60,000-100,000), and a portrait of Mercedes Matter by Hans Hoffman, which the artist executed in Gloucester in 1934(Lot 83; $50,000-80,000).

Of particular note amongst several works by Romare Bearden is New York Scenes, a series of 23 watercolors depicting various views of New York City, completed in 1979 for John Cassavetes’ film Gloria.

Other highlights include an imposing view of a sailor by



John George Brown(Lot 24; $15,000-25,000),

 

a quintessential beach scene by Edward Henry Potthast(Lot 45, $30,000-50,000),

 
two exceptional watercolors by Charles Demuth, Cyclamen(Lot 73; $60,000-100,000)

 

 and Zinnias(Lot 74; $60,000-80,000), both from the prominent collection of Philip A. Bruno.

In addition, the sale will feature an oil study for a painting by

 

William Glackens entitled Nude Drying Hair(Lot 33; $15,000-25,000).

Sotheby’s American Art auction 19 November 2019

This season’s American Art auction features two important works by Milton Avery from the collection, led by

 

Porch Sitters from 1952 (estimate $2/3 million). Belonging to a remarkably innovative period in Avery’s career, the work depicts Avery’s daughter, March, reading alongside a female companion, likely painted in Woodstock, New York, where the Avery family often spent the summers. Porch Sitters exemplifies the evolution in treatment of color that Avery’s work underwent in the early 1950s, and illustrates the artist’s innovative experiments with the expressive power of color.

 

The collection also offers Milton Avery's Young Musician from 1945, painted when the artist’s mature style had fully emerged (estimate $1.2/1.8 million). Many scholars attribute the Avery’s stylistic developments during this period to his new affiliation with Paul Rosenberg's gallery, as the artist was exposed to the work of artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, who Rosenberg also represented. In Young Musician, Avery presents the traditional subject of a female figure in repose, accompanied by a mandolin, a guitar and sheet music. In both the subject matter and treatment of his forms, Avery’s admiration for Picasso is fully displayed.



Frederic Edwin Church’s South American Landscape is an important example of his renowned images of the dramatic Ecuadorian countryside (estimate $1.5/2.5 million). Departing from New York City in 1853, Church and fellow landscape painter Cyrus West Field embarked on two trips to Ecuador in 1853 and in 1857 as part of Church’s sweeping exploration of South America. Church was particularly enthralled by the active volcanoes that protruded from the landscape. The present work depicts the momentous Cotopaxi volcano. Soaring 20,000 feet above sea level, Cotopaxi is the highest peak to mark the Andes mountains, and was a geological phenomenon in the 19th century. Here, Church incorporates elements of expansive mountain terrain, lush vegetation and rising palms in order to construct the ideal landscape.

 
 
Executed in 1976, Jamie Wyeth’s Andy Warhol Sitting with Archie (No.9) depicts the iconic American artist and his dog, Archie (estimate $60/80,000). According to art historian David Houston, while Wyeth was working in New York in the 1970s – the epicenter of art, fashion and high society – the artist was introduced to Warhol by photographer and socialite Peter Beard. In 1976, Warhol and Wyeth painted each other's portraits, an arrangement facilitated by Wyeth's friendship with American writer and cultural figure Lincoln Kirstein. Over the next four years, Wyeth enjoyed two extended residencies at the Factory, participated in four exhibitions, and shared an exhibition catalogue with Andy Warhol. This portrait will appear at auction for the first time in over three decades, having remained in the same private collection since 1980.




A selection of works by N.C. Wyeth is led by Ogier and Morgana from 1924 (estimate $400/600,000). Appearing at auction for the first time, the work was originally gifted by the artist to longtime general motors employee William Lewis after he visited Wyeth’s studio in 1926; it has descended through the Lewis family ever since. The painting belongs to a series of 11 works Wyeth created as illustrations for the 1924 edition of Thomas Bulfinch’s Legends of Charlemagne, including the present work. First published in 1863, Legends of Charlemagne recounts the tales and folklore that became associated with Charlemagne, who ruled Europe during the 8th century. Epitomizing Wyeth’s distinct romantic aesthetic, the present work illustrates the story of Ogier the Dane, a legendary knight of Charlemagne's court, and Morgana le Fay, a powerful enchantress who, according to Arthurian legend, served as King Arthur’s magical savior and protector.



Works by Maxfield Parrish are highlighted by Mill Pond from 1945, which ranks among the most recognizable paintings of the artist’s career (estimate $600/800,000). In 1931, at the height of his popularity in America, Parrish issued a statement to the Associated Press announcing his decision to abandon the figurative work that had made him a household name. Four years later in 1935, he signed a contract with Brown & Bigelow to provide illustrations for the company’s popular line of calendars, greeting cards, and playing cards. Of the nearly 100 landscapes that Parrish produced for Brown & Bigelow, Mill Pond was the artist’s most successful.

Georgia O’keeffe’s Anthurium





Georgia O’Keeffe, Anthurium, 1923.  Courtesy Sotheby’s.
 
Throughout her career, Georgia O’Keeffe chose physical objects from nature – trees, flowers, leaves, animal bones, mountains – as subject matter for her work. Painted in 1923, Anthurium not only illustrates her deep admiration of the natural world, but also reveals her intent to distill abstract patterns from these organic sources (estimate $1.5/2.5 million). Reflecting the formal vocabulary O’Keeffe developed as an avant-garde American artist in the early decades of the 20th century, Anthurium masterfully exemplifies the deeply personal synthesis of realism and abstraction that pervades the entirety of her celebrated oeuvre.

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art November 11

Complete results

Prices realized:

 

René Magritte, Le Seize Septembre, $19,570,000

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, $16,165,000



Pablo Picasso, Femme dans un fauteuil (Françoise), $13,327,500




Camille Pissarro, Jardin et poulailler chez Octave Mirbeau, Les Damps, $10,263,000

 

Fernand Léger’s La femme et l’enfant, 1921 Not Sold

On November 11, Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art included Fernand Léger’s La femme et l’enfant, 1921 ($8-12 million), which will mark the painting’s first time at auction. La femme et l’enfant is a key work in the series of female figure paintings that Fernand Léger created in early 1921, a strategic campaign that culminated by the end of that year in a pair of masterworks: Le petit déjeuner (formerly in the collection of Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine, sold at Christie's New York, November 5, 1991) and Le grand déjeuner (The Museum of Modern Art, New York). The paintings of one and several characters from 1921 signaled a turning point in the evolution of Léger's work in the years following the end of the First World War. The woman and child presented here, is the largest of the two paintings depicting a mother and young child and bears the designation of the artist “Définitif” on the back.

By 1920, in a reaction to the trauma of the war years, a palliative conservatism had settled on the arts, le rappel à l’ordre—“the call to order.” This revival of the classical, humanist values that had historically informed the Gallic tradition lent a new, retrospective demeanor to the erstwhile, stridently transgressive character of the Paris avant-garde. A return to coherent figuration was fundamental to this endeavor. The Louvre and other museums were taking their master paintings, medieval art, and antiquities out of protective wartime storage and placing them back on view. Renewed exposure to these riches fostered in Léger a more compelling awareness of artistic tradition.
Léger maintained that conventional genre subjects, such as the mother and child, remained viable in a modernist context provided that such content was drawn from contemporary life. In this way he could utilize, transform, and revitalize virtually any pictorial convention he chose to feature, and imbue it with currency and relevance.

In the present La femme et l’enfant, Léger highlighted the fundamental human relationship of a woman caring for her offspring. This theme held special resonance for viewers at that time. An ovular-shaped plant in the background symbolizes reproductive fertility. The woman is attired in tricolor blue, white, and red—she is emblematic of La France. The child, especially if male, had become a key to future national prosperity. The French suffered 1.4 million military casualties during the war; at the signing of the armistice, 40 percent fewer men were available for unmarried women than before the war. The birth rate had dropped to one-third of what it was in 1870.

By 1920, however, veterans had begun to marry; women readily turned to men younger than themselves and would even cross conventional class lines. The birth rate in France soon surpassed pre-war levels. The dynamic, changing panorama of life in contemporary France, from social demographics to economic progress, indeed attested to “an epoch of contrasts,” as Léger proclaimed.