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Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
GEORGES ROUAULT Automne.
Color aquatint, 1938. 510x665 mm; 20 1/8x26 1/4 inches, full margins. Numbered 145/175 in pencil, lower left. Printed by Lacourière, Paris. Published by Vollard, Paris. A brilliant, richly-inked impression of this large, important print, with vibrant colors.
Rouault (1871-1958) was among the foremost printmakers of the early 20th century, translating his heavily-contoured, colorful paintings into richly-inked, painterly aquatints with the help of the Parisian master-printer Roger Lacourière. In the late 1880s, Rouault had trained as an apprentice with a glass painter and restorer and, in the early 1890s, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, under the symbolist master Gustave Moreau. Both these experiences certainly influenced his style, as did his friendships at the turn-of-the-century with some of the leading Fauves, including Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet and Henri Manguin.
Automne is Rouault's tour-de-force and a secular stand-out in a printmaking oeuvre with a concentration on religious, spiritual and Biblical themes. It is among his most colorful, technically complex and largest prints, as well as a precursor to the large aquatints favored by Picasso and Matisse from the 1950s and 1960s. Chapon/Rouault 288 c; Wofsy 285.
