Henry Valensi
La Guerre, 1954
1954

Name: La Guerre, 1954
Brand: Henry Valensi
Price: 2399.85 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Henry Valensi (1883-1960) La Guerre, 1954 Graphite on paper Signed "Henry Valensi", dated "1954" and titled "La Guerre" in the upper right corner 10,6 x 13,5 inch Provenance : former collection Philippe Klein, gallerist and art collector Born in Algiers in 1883, Henry Valensi moved to Paris in 1899 with his family who encouraged him in his budding passion for painting. He received his first training at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts and then at the Académie Julian, which he joined in 1902, where he studied under Jules Lefebvre (1834-1912), among others. He joined the Society of Independent Artists in 1908 and exhibited regularly at the Salon. The first paintings he presented were still in a post-impressionist vein. Anxious to renew pictorial art by freeing the artist from a purely objective vision, Henry Valensi quickly developed a more personal style. He shared the thoughts of the avant-garde artists of his time in a context of intellectual and scientific effervescence. Close to the Groupe de Puteaux formed in 1911 around Marcel Duchamp, Henry Valensi participated in the mythical Section d'or Salon inaugurated in 1912 alongside artists such as Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes and Jacques Villon. Unconcerned about making a living from his art, the young artist set himself apart from the market. After the First World War, he traveled throughout Europe as far as Russia and criss-crossed the Mediterranean basin. He will say: "all my travels had for goal only my work". During his escapades, the landscapes he painted became more abstract and integrated a form of movement in the vein of the Italian futurists (ill.1). He also developed an obsession with geometry and the search for utopian views. In 1923, an exhibition was dedicated to him in Rome by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), theorist and founder of futurism. Author of numerous theoretical writings on the relationship between the pictorial and the musical, Henry Valensi founded, in 1932, a movement that he named musicalism and that he defined as a painting to be heard. He is thus among the creators of new spatial conceptions like Leopold Survage or Frantisek Kupka. He considers that painting, like music, propagates waves; the color makes the material vibrate and, associated with the line, creates a true music on the surface of the canvas that the artist conceives as a score in space. Rhythm plays a predominant role in his work, which can be described as "musical painting". Between 1936 and 1959, Henry Valensi worked on a now mythical "cine-painting". He made a short abstract film in color entitled The Spring Symphony, based on 64,000 drawings from a painting done in 1932. This work represents the ultimate achievement of painting in motion. Exiled to Algiers between 1940 and 1945, Henry Valensi produced works on the Resistance and on the advance of the Allied troops, which he called his Gaullist "propaganda works". The pencil drawing that we present is part of the post-war context and illustrates the place of studies in Henry Valensi's creative process. It is preparatory to an oil on canvas musicalist of 1954 entitled La Symphonie guerrière (ill.2) and thought to be a counterpart to La Paix. His first painted symphonies date from 1934. The artist spent a long time meditating on these paintings, of which we know other preparatory gouaches (ill.3 & ill.4). An essential step in the recognition of his work: Henry Valensi's work was recently distinguished in the Modernités Plurielles exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, where a room is dedicated to him. Bibliography : Krisztina Passuth, Henry Valensi, du futurisme au musicalisme, Paris, Galerie Le Minotaure, 2014 Marie Talon, Henry Valensi, l’heure est venue, Yveline édition, 2013 Museums : Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne Paris, Musée d’art moderne de la ville Lyon, Musée des beaux-arts

Creator:

Henry Valensi (1883 - 1960)

Creation Year:

1954

Dimensions:

Height: 10.63 in (27 cm)Width: 13.78 in (35 cm)

More Editions & Sizes:

Original drawingPrice: $2,400

Medium:

Pencil,Graphite

Movement & Style:

Abstract