Haystacks (Primary Title)
Les Meules (Translation)
Kees Van Dongen, Dutch (active in France), 1877 - 1968 (Artist)
Following his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam between 1892 and 1897, Van Dongen relocated to Paris. In 1906, he moved into a studio neighboring Picasso's workshop in the Batteau-Lavoir district of Montmartre, where he met and befriended many artists, including the Fauve painters Derain and Vlaminck.
Haystacks marks the transition between the painter's early Post-Impressionist production and the clamorous palette and daring figuration of his most iconic period. The theme and the deliberately gestural application of paint appear like a pastiche of one of Van Gogh's scenes of laboring peasants; yet Van Dongen's choice to divide the canvas into two almost equal, roughly monochromatic zones prefigures the bold chromatic juxtapositions of his later work.
The striking compositional arrangement and surprising color contrasts in Parisian Lady show Van Dongen espousing the tendencies of Fauvism. His avant-garde representations of bohemian nightlife and Parisian high society during the optimistic decade before World War I earned Van Dongen both esteem and notoriety. The enormous hat and tiny dog that accessorize this fashionable socialite humorously convey the overstated elegance of the Belle Époque.
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018-2019: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
2018: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018
Curator’s Talk: The Reinstallation of the Mellon Collection
1:14:33The collection of European paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts given by Paul and Rachel Mellon constitute an essential facet of the museum’s identity. Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art, discusses the reinstallation of the Mellon Collection.
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