Maurice de Vlaminck

P. 167x246mm., S. 280x371mm.

Rue à Louveciennes Walterskirchen 20b woodcut, circa 1910-13*, on medium-weight ivory Holland laid paper, with the Van Gelder watermark, a fine impression from the 1914 edition of 30, signed lower right and numbered "17" lower left in pencil, with full margins as published, the only known state, a few slight foxmarks along the sheet edge, and two hinge mounts on the reverse, otherwise in excellent condition

West of Paris, following in the tracks of Pissarro, who often painted similar street scenes here, Vlaminck turns the motif to account in a clearly constructivist light, with boldly defined geometrically facetted forms that are accentuated by touches of swirling greenery and far distant clouds.

* The dating of Vlaminck's fauve woodcuts is somewhat problematic: often dated to circa 1910, or even earlier, Kahnweiler himself (in a 1970 letter to Walterskirchen, see Walterskirchen 1974, p. 272) affirmed they had all been executed in 1913. See also the discussion of dating Vlaminck's prints in E. Pernoud, L'Estampe des Fauves, 1994, p. 102.