Henri Le Sidaner

(French, 1862-1939)

Flamande, c. 1899

graphite on paper

signed Le Sidaner (lower right)

7 ¼ x 3 ½ inches.

Property from the Miriam B. Swanson Trust, Chicago, Illinois

Provenance:

Galleries Maurice Sternberg, Chicago

Acquired directly from the above, December 1973

Literature:

Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Le Sidaner: L'Oeuvre Peint et Grave, Paris, 1989, no. 846, p. 301, illus.

Lot essay:

The twilit gardens and hushed city scenes of Henri Le Sidaner’s artworks conjure a seductive, mysterious world. Throughout his career, Le Sidaner remained chiefly concerned with capturing atmospheric light and favored a subdued use of color, preferring nuanced greys and opals applied with uneven, dappled brushstrokes. Le Sidaner developed his distinctive lexicon during the 1890s, under the influence of Symbolism. On a formal level, he found a suitably harmonious, all-over treatment for his compositions in Impressionism. This dual aspect of his art was touched on by the critic, and his supporter, Camille Mauclair who wrote: "born out of Impressionism, [Le Sidaner] is as much the son of Verlaine than of the snowscenes of Monet" (C. Mauclair, Henri Le Sidaner, Paris, 1928, p. 12).

Born in 1862 in Mauritius, to Breton parents, in 1872 Le Sidaner’s family settled in Dunkirk, France. In 1882 he left for Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Cabanel. However, Le Sidaner shortly after left because of artistic differences. He relocated to the Ètaples artist colony, which had a tradition of en plain air painting established by Charles-François Daubigny and of the local Deauville painter Eugène Boudin, a leading Post-Impressionist. In the late nineteenth-century numerous artists were drawn by the sand dunes, the atmospheric light and the remnants of an older France.

In 1895 Le Sidaner left Étaples and moved again to Paris, likely for career reasons. The Paris stay was short but significant, as in 1898 he eloped to Bruges with Camille Navarre, to whom he was subsequently married. For Le Sidaner the years in Bruges were pivotal to his subsequent artistic career. It was here that he painted a series of nocturnes exploring the gloaming light around dusk. Although many of these artworks omit figures, around 1899, the artist executed a series of drawings that depict a standing woman and child, of which Flamande is included. The finished figure of the woman in this drawing is seen in profile and dressed in traditional Flemish costume. A simple line sketch of a small child can be seen standing within her embrace.

Flamande, c. 1899