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拍品专文
Elegant and prismatic, Tête de femme is a striking encapsulation of Jean Metzinger’s cubist vision. From dazzling geometric fragments and angular shapes emerges the titular woman, her face formed of multiple, vivid planes. Against her décolletage shimmers an emerald necklace. The figure is at once abstract and intelligible, ethereal yet substantial, an arresting tour de force of luminous color. Painted circa 1914, Tête de femme was included in an exhibition held that year at the Montross Gallery in New York, where it was featured alongside art by Marcel Duchamp, Jean Crotti, and Albert Gleizes.
Almost from the get-go, Metzinger was an advocate for both Cubism and its founders, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, writing, in 1910, of the “men of courage who know what they are doing—here are painters” (“Notes on Painting,” reprinted in C. Harrison and P. Wood, Art in Theory, 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford, 1997, p. 177). The following year, he helped to organize a group of like-minded artists—Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes, and Henri Le Fauconnier—to exhibit together at the Salon des Indépendants, in what would be the first formal group exhibition of Cubist artists. Metzinger worked tirelessly to promote the movement, authoring, along with his colleague Gleizes, the influential Du Cubisme, which was the first treatise to articulate the philosophical foundations for the groundbreaking movement.
Although an enthusiastic supporter of Picasso and Braque, Metzinger’s own paintings differed formally and chromatically from their work. Paintings from the earliest iteration of the movement, known as analytical cubism, were distinguished by their muted palette. By contrast, Metzinger worked with brighter tonalities, believing that specific forms “should assume sparkling colors” (A. Gleizes and J. Metzinger, “Cubism,” in R. Herbert, ed., Modern Artists On Art: Ten Unabridged Essays, Englewood Cliffs, 1964, p. 12). In that vein, Metzinger also did not entirely eschew naturalism, as evidenced in Tête de femme in which several elements of the woman’s face, including her eye, have remained whole.
More broadly, Metzinger sought to reimagine how reality was depicted. In “Notes on Painting,” a brief essay dating from 1910, he explained: “For us the Greeks invented the human form; we must reinvent it for others” (“Notes on Painting,” reprinted in C. Harrison and P. Wood, Art in Theory, 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford, 1997, p. 177). Using multiple and often competing perspectival systems, works such as Tête de femme present life as unfixed and mutable. In doing so, Metzinger hoped to offer new ways of seeing and new understandings of the world he experienced.
Tête de femme was first owned by John Quinn, the American lawyer and prominent figure in the avant-garde art world in New York. Quinn assembled an extraordinary collection of more than 2000 paintings, drawings and sculptures, which included works by Paul Cezanne, Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Diego Rivera, and Picasso. As an attorney, Quinn often took on art-adjacent cases and served as the legal counsel to the 1913 Armory Show, for which he helped to revise tariff laws concerning modern art imported from Europe. He was generous with his collection, lending works to various exhibitions including the first show dedicated to Impressionist and post-Impressionist canvases staged at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1921.
Almost from the get-go, Metzinger was an advocate for both Cubism and its founders, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, writing, in 1910, of the “men of courage who know what they are doing—here are painters” (“Notes on Painting,” reprinted in C. Harrison and P. Wood, Art in Theory, 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford, 1997, p. 177). The following year, he helped to organize a group of like-minded artists—Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes, and Henri Le Fauconnier—to exhibit together at the Salon des Indépendants, in what would be the first formal group exhibition of Cubist artists. Metzinger worked tirelessly to promote the movement, authoring, along with his colleague Gleizes, the influential Du Cubisme, which was the first treatise to articulate the philosophical foundations for the groundbreaking movement.
Although an enthusiastic supporter of Picasso and Braque, Metzinger’s own paintings differed formally and chromatically from their work. Paintings from the earliest iteration of the movement, known as analytical cubism, were distinguished by their muted palette. By contrast, Metzinger worked with brighter tonalities, believing that specific forms “should assume sparkling colors” (A. Gleizes and J. Metzinger, “Cubism,” in R. Herbert, ed., Modern Artists On Art: Ten Unabridged Essays, Englewood Cliffs, 1964, p. 12). In that vein, Metzinger also did not entirely eschew naturalism, as evidenced in Tête de femme in which several elements of the woman’s face, including her eye, have remained whole.
More broadly, Metzinger sought to reimagine how reality was depicted. In “Notes on Painting,” a brief essay dating from 1910, he explained: “For us the Greeks invented the human form; we must reinvent it for others” (“Notes on Painting,” reprinted in C. Harrison and P. Wood, Art in Theory, 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford, 1997, p. 177). Using multiple and often competing perspectival systems, works such as Tête de femme present life as unfixed and mutable. In doing so, Metzinger hoped to offer new ways of seeing and new understandings of the world he experienced.
Tête de femme was first owned by John Quinn, the American lawyer and prominent figure in the avant-garde art world in New York. Quinn assembled an extraordinary collection of more than 2000 paintings, drawings and sculptures, which included works by Paul Cezanne, Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Diego Rivera, and Picasso. As an attorney, Quinn often took on art-adjacent cases and served as the legal counsel to the 1913 Armory Show, for which he helped to revise tariff laws concerning modern art imported from Europe. He was generous with his collection, lending works to various exhibitions including the first show dedicated to Impressionist and post-Impressionist canvases staged at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1921.