2006
Estève, Maurice
1904 Culan - 2001 ibid.
«Intérieur».
Watercolour and India ink on strong wove paper. Signed upper left and dated (19)38. Verso personal dedication «Merci de vos voeux pour 1958 et le délicieuses friandises de la Marquise! Avec nos souhaits les meilleurs Estève» according to available photo. Verso on the backboard numbered by a different hand «No 605A», inscribed «No d'archives» and «coll. P. Courthion», two printed labels from the Galerie Laurentin, Paris, one with the work's data, the other numbered by hand «36» as well as a printed transport label from André Chenue S.A., Paris, for the Galerie Larock-Granoff, Paris, and further labels with the work's data, the handling and a numbering.
H 25, W 32 cm (sheet). Original frame.
After moving to Paris with his parents in 1913, it was the early Renaissance painters Jean Fouquet and Paolo Ucello who fascinated the young Estève during visits to the Louvre in the 1920s. His desire to become an artist was ignited. Largely self-taught, he became acquainted with the art of Cézanne, whom he admired, and visited the Atelier Colarossi in order to form himself artistically. Finally, from the 1930s onwards, he developed his own style, based on post-Cubist forms, which he composes in a poetically colourful way in the paintings of figures, still lifes and interiors. These become increasingly abstract during the 1950s, showing closely interlocking forms with rich, bold colours. Alongside Jean-Paul Riopelle and Pierre Soulages, Estève is an important representative of gestural-sensitive Tachism in France, also known as lyrical abstraction.
Description: Galerie Antoine Laurentin, Paris, with the work's data and the provenance, w/o date (around 2011).
Photograph confirmation: Verso inscribed with the work's data and the archive number, Ms Monique Estève, Musée Estève, Bourges, w/o date. With prior correspondence, 21./29.03.2011.
We would like to thank Ms Muriel Margotin, Municipality of Bourges, for the direct consultation of Ms Monique Estève and the current confirmation of the present documents via E-Mail, based on photos, 13.10.2022.
Provenance: Collection P. Courthion, Paris; Galerie Larock-Granoff, Paris; Galerie Antoine Laurentin, Paris; private collection Helmut Dudé, Basel; since then private collection Freiburg i.Br.
Archive: This work is registered in the Musée Estève, Bourges, under the number A-605.

Condition report