Flaneurs aux Champs Elysées. Strollers in the Champs Elysées by Kees Van Dongen, 1877-1968

Kees Van Dongen, 1877-1968
Scroll down for information.
Click here to return to the list.

Flaneurs aux Champs Elysées. Strollers in the Champs Elysées

Original lithograph in colours. c.1950. Signed in pencil. Numbered in pencil from the edition of 60 with roman numerals. There was also an edition of 200 with regular numbering. Total edition of 260. Printed at the studio of Mourlot Paris. Issued by the Guilde la Gravure, Paris c.1950. (With their blindstamp).
Colours: yellow, red, ochre, olive, grey and black.

Very fine strong impression with excellent strong colours. On pale cream wove Arches-type paper. Generally excellent condition; some very slight traces of old laying-down on the reverse of the sheet only. Sheet: 22 x 14 7/8ins. Image overall: 16 3/4 x 10 7/8ins (425x278mm)

This item is sold.
Click here to enquire about this item.

Kees van Dongen was born in Holland but after travelling widely in the years before the First War he settled in Paris and during the 1920's became one of the most characteristic and individual artists of the Parisian life of that era. In 1905 to 1910 he was amongst the finest of the Fauve painters, with a brilliant expressive use of colour and form. After the War, like the others of that circle he adopted a softer style but colour remained essential to the emotional quality in his art.

From the 1930's onwards Van Dongen started to concentrate almost exclusively on themes taken from the elegant and stylish life of Paris society. He captured his themes both with wit and with an elan that echoed that way of life itself.

Always an artist for whom the graphic element of drawing was important, after the War he became an enthusiastic exponent of lithography as a medium. This composition, drawn just after the Second War, is typical of the best of his later style: witty, stylish and with very effective use of colour. His best colour lithographs of this period have become very scarce.