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Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
CLAUDE VENARD Pont Vénitien.
Oil on canvas, circa 1960. 750x750 mm; 29 1/2x29 1/2 inches. Signed in ink, lower left recto.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Venard (1913-1999) Venard was a French post-Cubist and still life painter. Known for working in a distinctive angular style, he accentuated the chromatic qualities of his palette through thickly applied impasto paint. He enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, but abandoned his studies after only two days--instead, his arts education would come from his work as an assistant to a master paintings restorer at the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
In 1936, Venard participated in a group exhibition for a new art movement that derided the avant-garde in favor of a return to strict and traditional principles of craftsmanship: the Forces Nouvelles, a group which included the painters Pierre Tal-Coat and André Marchand. Eventually Venard would develope his own post-Cubist style utilizing a wide color palette applied roughly with a palette knife, creating a visceral strain of the geometric aesthetic.
Throughout the 1950s, Venard's paintings became more abstracted, as in this current scene of Venice. The artist's works are included in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Tokyo Museum.
