Questroyal 2009

Alfred Henry Maurer ( 1868 – 1932 ) Plate 28 Fauve Landscape Oil on board 18 x 21 3 / 4 inches Signed lower center : A.H. Maurer provenance Private collection, Connecticut Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, NewYork Private collection, NewYork Maurer’s one preoccupation is to beautify every square inch of canvas on which he depicts his poeticized representations of subject. . . . To him nature is a motif, a simple motif like a subdued melody out of which the musician, by addition and development, constructs a sonata. willard huntington wright, author and art critic , 1916 1 It is necessary for art to differ from nature, or we would at once lose the raison d’être of painting. Perhaps art should be the intensification of nature; at least, it should express an inherent feeling which cannot be obtained from nature except through a process of association. alfred henry maurer, 1916 2 Embracing Fauvist Expression Alfred Henry Maurer’s transition from an impressionist aesthetic to one influenced by Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse marked the great turning point of his career. Embracing the fauves allowed the artist to move toward greater abstraction and personal expression in his work. This new direction was also inspired by his close friendships with influential patrons and collectors of avant-garde art, such as Gertrude Stein, as well as a visit to the groundbreaking 1905 Salon d’Automne in Paris—an exhibition that irrevo- cably changed the trajectory of modern art. Maurer was a leading figure in the parallel artistic shift back home in America, and he remained fully aware of its consequences, remarking in 1908 : “I am painting pictures now which I could never have imagined doing a year or so ago. . . . The transition from the old school to the new is not an easy one.” 3 Fauve Landscape is an intensely personal meditation on nature that displays his most celebrated formal techniques. The high-keyed color palette and jagged, almost frenzied facture are characteristic of Maurer’s mature works, melding the best of modern European styles with his own aesthetic. — imh Maurer’s works may be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Philadelphia Art Museum, and Art Institute of Chicago. 1 Willard HuntingtonWright, “The Forum Exhibition,” Forum 55 (April 1916 ): 465 . 2 Alfred Maurer, in a statement published for the Forum exhibition catalogue (NewYork, 1916 ). Quoted in Alfred H. Maurer 1868 – 1932 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973 ), pp. 47 – 48 . 3 Alfred Maurer, quoted in “Artist Maurer Now an Impressionist: New York Painter a Recruit to the School Which is Coming to the Fore in Paris,” The NewYork Times, April 19 , 1908 .