Matisse wanted to buy a Van Gogh portrait—instead, his brother bought a bicycle – The Art Newspaper

In 1899, Matisse, then a 29-year-old struggling artist, found Van Gogh’s work at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris. He fell in love with L’Arlesienne and wished to purchase the portrait of the lady of Arles, which was being supplied for simply 150 francs (then equal to £6). However the impoverished painter nonetheless discovered it a problem to boost the cash.

Greater than 4 a long time later Matisse recalled what had occurred: “At Vollard’s there was a portrait by Van Gogh of a girl from Arles on a pink background. Nowadays it’s well-known.” This was in all probability the portray of L’Arlesienne (April 1890) which is now in São Paulo, though it may need been an identical model which may now be discovered at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea.

Again in 1899 Matisse had written to his youthful brother Auguste to ask for assist: “If you wish to use your financial savings to purchase a corker of a portray, I’ve discovered one. It’s low-cost and it’s very lovely.” Auguste responded: “I can’t, I’ve simply purchased an Acatène.” An Acatène was one of many newest bicycles, costing round 500 francs.

Matisse by some means managed to boost the 150 francs for L’Arlesienne, returning to Vollard’s gallery six weeks later. By this time, nevertheless, the canny seller had raised the value to 450 francs, which was fully past the artist’s means.

Vollard defined to the disenchanted Matisse: “An image doesn’t have a hard and fast worth. Say I’ve an image right here and I usually ask 500 francs for it. Somebody like Monsieur de Camondo [a very wealthy collector] arrives and takes a passing curiosity in it. My image instantly goes up from 500 to five,000 francs.”

Nonetheless, whereas Matisse had missed out on a Van Gogh portray, he did a minimum of already personal a drawing. In the summertime of 1897 he had stayed on the Breton island of Belle-Ile, the place he met the Australian artist John Russell, who had develop into mates with Van Gogh in Paris a decade earlier. After transferring to Arles Van Gogh had despatched Russell finely executed pen-and-ink copies of a dozen of his work. Matisse was so entranced by seeing them that Russell very generously gave him one, Haystacks (July-August 1888).

Matisse later acquired two different Van Gogh drawings: The Harvest (July 1888) and Portrait of Endurance Escalier (August 1888).

Inspiration

Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne have been the good inspirers for the younger Matisse. In 1898 Matisse had painted his personal model of Sunflowers. Though the motif is undoubtedly Van Gogh’s, Matisse created his personal very private picture, working in a a lot looser, extra Expressionist type than the Dutchman.

Matisse’s admiration for Van Gogh solely elevated after he considered the primary retrospective of the artist’s work on the Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris in 1901.

On the exhibition he met André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, fellow artists who have been equally entranced by Van Gogh’s expressive use of color. Matisse and his two associates have been quickly dubbed Les Fauves (The Wild Beasts), due to their highly effective brushwork and stunning colors. 

Matisse’s most necessary Fauve portrait was of his spouse Amélie. Relationship from 1905, it is called Portrait of Madame Matisse: The Inexperienced Line. In colouration it has echoes of Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe (January 1889), which Matisse knew properly. 

Within the 1941 interview by which Matisse recalled the bicycle anecdote he additionally revealed that, on the wall of his bed room, he had two reproductions of work: Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and a piece by his fellow Fauve, Georges Rouault. The Van Gogh was in all probability the one illustrated above, which had been acquired by Vollard in 1896, though it was presumably the opposite self-portrait with bandaged ear which is now at London’s Courtauld Gallery. A decade later, the 71-year-old Matisse nonetheless had the Van Gogh replica close to his mattress. 

In 1953, a 12 months earlier than Matisse’s loss of life, the aged and primarily bedridden artist was nonetheless innovating, producing his famed “cut-outs”—brightly-coloured irregular shapes organized on a white background. That 12 months he instructed an interviewer: “I’ve saved my eye on Cezanne and Van Gogh; every of them sought desperately to depict his personal imaginative and prescient.”

Different Van Gogh information:

Astonishing Issues: The Drawings of Victor Hugo (till 29 June) opens at present at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. The present’s title comes from Van Gogh, who used the expression “astonishing issues” in a letter to his brother, Theo, to bathe reward on the Nineteenth-century French author and his sketches. Vincent was a fantastic admirer of the novelist. Nonetheless, though the Dutchman’s phrases have offered the present’s title, he doesn’t function within the precise exhibition.

Martin Bailey is a number one Van Gogh specialist and particular correspondent for The Artwork Newspaper. Bailey has curated Van Gogh exhibitions on the Barbican Artwork Gallery, Compton Verney/Nationwide Gallery of Scotland and Tate Britain.

Bailey has written numerous bestselling books on Van Gogh’s years in France: The Sunflowers Are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece (Frances Lincoln 2013 (UK and US), Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence (Frances Lincoln 2016 (UK and US), Starry Night time: Van Gogh on the Asylum (White Lion Publishing 2018, UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale: Auvers and the Artist’s Rise to Fame (Frances Lincoln 2021, UK and US). The Sunflowers are Mine (UK and US) and Van Gogh’s Finale (UK and US) are additionally now out there in a extra compact paperback format. Dwelling with Vincent van Gogh: the Properties and Landscapes that formed the Artist (White Lion Publishing 2019, UK and US) offers an outline of the artist’s life. The Illustrated Provence Letters of Van Gogh has been reissued (Batsford 2021, UK and US). My Buddy Van Gogh/Emile Bernard offers the primary English translation of Bernard’s writings on Van Gogh (David Zwirner Books 2023, UK and US).

To contact Martin Bailey, please e mail vangogh@theartnewspaper.com. Please word that he doesn’t undertake authentications.

Learn extra from Martin’s Adventures with Van Gogh weblog right here.