Provenance

Valentine Gallery

American, est. 1926 - closed 1947

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A man, woman, a small table, chair, and two fragments of walls float on an octagonal, straw-colored floor amid a landscape with bare, rolling, olive-green hills in this stylized, vertical painting. The man and woman have pale skin and are positioned on opposite sides of the table from each other. To our left, the heavily-built man stands with his right hand, to our left, planted on the white tablecloth that nearly reaches the floor. He is cleanshaven with curly black hair, a round face, and a prominent nose. His large, dark eyes are deeply set, and a few cross-hatched black lines could indicate shadows or a black eye. His rumpled suit, vest, shirt, and tie are all sand brown. He looks toward a woman seated on our side of the table, opposite him. Her body is angled away from us to our right. Her blond hair is pulled up and she wears a white, sleeveless, floor-length dress that drapes over her shoulders and down her back. Her wooden chair has a teal-blue inset panel at the back and turned legs, and it sits on a pumpkin-orange, rectangular area rug. The paneled floor seems to float in the landscape. The robin’s egg-blue door to our right, opposite the woman, opens inward in its frame, and the corner above the top right is stacked with laid bricks. A sliver of wall alongside the door frame suggests the turning of a corner in the room. To our left, behind the man, a second fragment of yellow-paneled wall stands behind the corner of a dark, mahogany dresser or cabinet carved along its back with curving, S-shaped molding. A framed picture showing the head and shoulders of a woman in tones of white and gray against a periwinkle-blue background hangs at the top of the yellow wall. The curving back of a mint-green, upholstered chair peeks out over the woman’s right shoulder. The floor is set among barren hills with a watery blue sky above. The painting is created mostly with areas of flat colors with outlines and hatched shading in black and white, like pen strokes. The artist signed the painting on the floating floor near the lower right corner, “G. de Chirico.”
Giorgio De Chirico, Conversation among the Ruins, 1927, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.107

Conversation among the Ruins

Giorgio De Chirico · 1927 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.107

André Derain, Still Life, 1913, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.10

Still Life

André Derain · 1913 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.10

André Derain, Portrait of a Girl, 1923/1924, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.21

Portrait of a Girl

André Derain · 1923/1924 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.21

Glimpses of body parts, bits of a stringed instrument, and hints of a background are fragmented and splintered in this vertical, abstracted painting. Painted within overlapping, geometric shapes, recognizable features like a nose, lips, eyes, and ears are at the top center above a chest, an arm, a ruffled shirt front, and bow tie. The scroll, neck, and bridge of an instrument, perhaps a cello, are below. A vase of flowers is in the background to the left, and a piano keyboard, music stand, and paper titled “Malvina Vass” are to the right. Most of the composition is painted in slate and celestial blue and smoky and nickel gray with some touches of brown, black, and muted red. The artist signed and dated the painting near the lower left corner, “Marcoussis 1914.”
Louis Casimir Ladislas Marcoussis, The Musician, 1914, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.163

The Musician

Louis Casimir Ladislas Marcoussis · 1914 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.163

Edouard Vuillard, Breakfast, 1894, oil on cardboard, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.97

Breakfast

Edouard Vuillard · 1894 · oil on cardboard ·  Accession ID  1970.17.97

Shown from the hips up, a woman and a man stand side-by-side in front of a window and curtain in this vertical painting. The people and background are painted with mostly flat areas of vivid color, with their bodies and features outlined in black. The man and woman both have paper-white skin, brown hair, straight noses, and small mouths. They stand facing us so the woman’s shoulder slightly overlaps the man’s. The man’s right arm wraps around the woman to rest on the far side of her neck. She holds his left hand with her left hand, both to our right, and her other arm is tucked into her waist. The woman’s head tilts to our right, toward the man, while her shoulders slope slightly away to our left. She looks off to our right with dark eyes under thin brows. Her white shirt is the same color as her skin. A sea green-cloth drapes over her head and one shoulder, and her skirt is buttercup yellow. The man turns his head to look at the woman. His clothing is coral red. The couple stands in front of a mauve-purple curtain on our right and a window with baby-blue panes set within an ash-gray frame on our left. The artist signed the painting in brown in the lower right, “Picasso 23.”
Pablo Picasso, The Lovers, 1923, oil on linen, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.192

The Lovers

Pablo Picasso · 1923 · oil on linen ·  Accession ID  1963.10.192

Fields of elephant gray, coral orange, and turquoise surround a fan-like, abstracted palm frond near the center of this vertical, abstract painting. The fronds of the palm radiate like a starburst against unpainted, cream-white canvas. Three black, vertical bands spaced behind the palm suggest tree trunks, with the rightmost trunk dotted with spring green, perhaps representing moss or the leaves of a vine. The fields of gray to either side of the frond, the turquoise areas below the gray, and the coral at the bottom center are painted with visible brushstrokes, creating a mottled effect. Rounded turquoise forms above the gray are silhouetted against a field of pale blue, perhaps representing the sky along the top edge. A few pointed, oval leaves painted spring green with black outlines dip into the scene from the top of the composition. The artist signed the work in dark green paint in the lower right: “Henri-Matisse.”
Henri Matisse, Palm Leaf, Tangier, 1912, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund, 1978.73.1

Palm Leaf, Tangier

Henri Matisse · 1912 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1978.73.1

Raoul Dufy, The Basket, 1926, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.22

The Basket

Raoul Dufy · 1926 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.22

A group of three men, two children, and one woman gather in an empty, dusky rose-pink landscape under a blue, cloudy sky in this nearly square painting. Most of the people have muted, peachy skin, and the woman and the youngest boy have cream-white skin. The woman sits on the ground to our right, apart from the rest of the men and children. She wears a coral-red skirt, a beige shawl, and straw hat, and she looks into the distance to our right. The others stand in a loose semi-circle on the left half of the composition. A man wearing a multicolored, diamond-patterned costume stands with his back to us to the left. He looks to our right in profile and holds the hand of a little girl who also stands with her back to us. She wears a pink dress and white stockings, and her right hand rests on the tall handle of a white basket. A portly man wearing a scarlet-red jester’s costume and pointed hat stands opposite this pair, facing us to our right. Next to him to our right a young man wears a tan-colored leotard with a black bottom. He holds a barrel over his right shoulder and looks over to our right. The sixth person is the youngest boy, who wears a baggy blue and red outfit, and he looks toward the woman. The eyes of all the figures are deeply shadowed.
Pablo Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.190

Family of Saltimbanques

Pablo Picasso · 1905 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.190

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Clowns

Rufino Tamayo · 1942 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1971.87.10