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Maurice DenisAudi Filia, Conceived circa 1890s; cast circa 1950s-60sCast bronze bas relief with variegated brown patina15 5/8 H x 11 5/8 W inches
Framed: 31 H x 26 1/2 W inchesNumber 4 in an edition of 12, cast posthumouslyInscribed upper left: 'MAUD; numbered 4/12; Georges Rudier Foundry Stamp
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Maurice DenisFolgoët le Soir, 1929Oil on canvas25 3/4 x 29 1/4 inches
Framed: 34 1/2 x 38 1/2 inchesMadame Claire Denis has confirmed authenticity of this work.Signed lower left: A Georges d’Espagnat son ami / MAU DENIS-1929
Overview
Known as the "Nabi of the beautiful icons", the deeply religious Maurice Denis is celebrated alongside Vuillard and Bonnard as one of the most important Nabi painters, a founder of the movement and its brilliant theoretician, and unquestionably the most fervent promoter of the Nabis. Denis wrote numerous reviews, articles, and treatises, including the group's manifesto defending the innovations of Paul Gauguin that emphasized the importance of the decorative elements of line, color, and form over pure representation. A member of the Symbolist Movement, Denis constructed theories that contributed to the foundations of Cubism, Fauvism, and Abstract Art.
Maurice Denis received a classical education in the Lycée Condorcet where he met Vuillard, Roussel and Lugné-Poë. While studying in the Lycée he took drawing lessons and copied paintings by the old masters. In 1888 he enrolled at the Adadémie Julian and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In the same year Paul Sérusier showed his friends at the Académie Julian the famous landscape that he had painted at the suggestion of Gauguin in Pont-Aven, which was considered a "talisman" of Gauguin's doctrine of Synthetism. This was a decisive revelation for Denis who found himself attracted by the new idea of Synthetism and by Gauguin's paintings, which he first saw at the exhibition of the Impressionist and Synthetist Group at the Café Volpini in 1889.
Denis joined the Nabis (a Hebrew word meaning 'prophets') and in 1890, in the review Art et Critique, he published his famous article in which he stated the artistic credo of the group. During this period he became associated with the Symbolist writers, illustrating the books of André Gide and Paul Verlaine's Sagesse, and designing front-pieces for Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande and for musical scores of Claude Debussy.
Like the other Nabis, Denis experimented in various fields of art, designing carpets, painting cartoons for stained-glass and mosaic panels, and decorating ceramics. The 1890s saw his first large-scale decorative works, the painting ceiling in the house of the French composer Chausson (1894).
Museums and Public Collections
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Illinois
Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University, Indiana
Brooklyn Museum, New York City
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
Dallas Museum of Art, Texas
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana
Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
MacKenzie Art Gallery, Saskatchewan
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota
Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pont-Aven, Fran
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, France
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, France
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, France
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Musée Maurice Denis, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
National Museums Liverpool, UK
Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome
Philadelphia Museum of Artania, Pennsylv
Réunion des Musées Nationaux, France
San Diego Museum of Art,
Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas
State Museums of Florence Digital Archive, Italy
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, Germany