?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
JACQUES VILLON Monsieur D. Lisant.
Drypoint, 1913. 390x293 mm; 15 3/8x11 1/2 inches, full margins. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of 32. Signed and inscribed "ep. d'artiste" in pencil, lower margin. A brilliant, richly-inked impression of this scarce, early Cubist print.
Ex-collection Francey and Dr. Martin L. Gecht, Chicago; sold Christie's New York, May 3, 2006, sale 1780, lot 169.
Exhibited "Graphic Modernism---Works on Paper from the Collection of Francey & Dr. Martin L. Gecht," Art Institute of Chicago, November 15, 2003-January 11, 2004.
Villon (1875-1963), born Gaston Duchamp) the oldest of four artist siblings (Marcel Duchamp; Raymond Villon-Duchamp and Suzanne Duchamp) learned engraving from his grandfather at age 16 and began his career as a Belle Epoque illustrator. Achieving success as an illustrator, he started to create fine art prints and, as he gained prominence in Paris, began expanding his artistic profile. He was an organizer of the first Salon d'Automne in 1903, which included artists such as Henri Matisse, Albert Gleizes, Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard, as well as a posthumous showing in homage to Paul Gauguin.
By 1910, Villon's work had become more expressive, signalling his break from commercial illustration and, in 1911, both he and Duchamp prticipated in the famous Salon d'Automne that incited the "Cubist Scandal" and introduced Cubism to France (and the world) in a widespread manner. The current work, a portrait of the artist's father (Monsieur Duchamp) is among the last of the major Cubist prints Villon created between 1911 and 1914 (one of the earliest is La Petite Mulâtresse, 1911, see lot 66) and highlights an oeuvre of Cubist prints from these formative years rivalled only by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Ginestet/Pouillon 284.
