- The Turning Road, L'Estaque
Frame: 58 1/4 × 84 9/16in. (148 × 214.8cm)
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André Derain’s masterpiece The Turning Road, L’Estaque is a major work of the avant-garde art movement called Fauvism. Typical of the vibrantly colorful style of fauves, French for "wild beasts," the canvas glows with intense colors. Flame-colored trees burn red, orange, and blue. Yellow, the color of sunlight, is everywhere.
This monumental landscape represents the French village of L’Estaque, where Paul Cézanne had painted earlier. The painting's title comes from the road that curves through the scene from the lower right. Derain made his way to southern France in 1905, joining Henri Matisse in developing the essential aspects of a new style together. Their freedom from the constraints of expressing the objective world is celebrated in this image. It is a fantasy in color, a place where reality is overrun by the decorative impulse. The Turning Road, L’Estaque serves as a milestone in the brief, yet crucial art-historical movement of Fauvism, which explored the central tenet of Modernist painting: that the strength of a picture has more to do with colors and the kinds of marks made on the surface of the canvas than with serving as a window on the world.
ProvenanceJean Laroche, Deauville; [Hôtel Drouot, Paris, “Provenant de la Villa Sauge Pourpiée, à Deauville,” December 8, 1926, no. 44]; Robert Blay, Paris, from the artist; Léon Brillouin, Paris; [Arthur Tooth and Sons, London]; Mr. and Mrs. John A. Beck, Houston, 1966; gift of Mrs. Audrey Jones Beck to MFAH, 1974.
Exhibition History"Les Fauves," The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1952–1953.
"Derain," Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1955.
"Les Fauves," Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1962.
"Derain," Musée Cantini, Marseilles, 1964.
"Oeuvres choisies de 1900 à nos jours," Galerie Max Kaganovitch, Paris, 1964.
"Fauve - Color," The University of Texas Art Museum, Austin, 1972.
"U.S. Loan Exhibition," National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1971–1973.
"The Collection of John A. and Audrey Jones Beck," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1974.
"The 'Wild Beasts,' Fauvism and Its Affinities," The Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 24–June 1, 1976; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 29–August 15, 1976; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, September 13–October 31, 1976.
"The Fauve Landscape," Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1991.
"Focus Show: André Derain's 'The Turning Road, L'Estaque," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 5–July 14, 2002.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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