Ladislas SLEWINSKI (1854-1918)

The Little Port at Doëlan, circa 1916 Oil on canvas. Signed on the back. 55 x 73 cm Stamp inked on the back of the canvas "Wladyslaw Slewinski ze spuscizny posmiertnej. E.Slewinska". Bibliography: Catalogue raisonné of Ladislas Slewinski, by Wladyslawa Jaworska, Editions of the People's Museum in Warsaw, 1981, illustrated under no. 296, notice no. 325 p 123. Provenance: - Artist's studio Primel Collection, In the descendants. Our painting is probably the last one painted by Slewinski. Jaworska dates it to 1916 and assigns it the last number in his catalogue raisonné. The artist, who had been living in France for 17 years, tried to return to his native land between 1905 and 1910. His reinstallation in the Polish artistic landscape was a failure. He quickly came into conflict with the artistic institutions and the professorship of the School of Fine Arts. Moreover, Slewinski found it difficult to reconcile the synthesist principles with the hazy and melancholic landscape vision of the Polish school. The painter's compatriot and art historian Kepinski writes: "With his return to Poland Slewinski increasingly abandoned the colours whose secrets he had learned in Pont Aven". In 1910, with his wife, they decided to return to France and bought a house in Pont-Aven and soon in Doëlan where he ended his life. With "Le petit Port de Doëlan, 1916" we exhibit one of the masterpieces of his last years. In this last French period the palette becomes clearer even if the drawing is still marked by the supple lines of symbolism. The atmosphere becomes more serene, the space is vast, the air more transparent, the light softer. The colouring has soft but sustained preciosities. Our large canvas impresses and demonstrates that "Slewinski is, along with Sérusier, among the artists of the Pont-Aven group who have contributed most to the durability of its aesthetic and its message" (Jaworska, 1971, p. 3). (Jaworska, 1971, p120). "Port w Doelan "jest jednym z późniejszych dzieł artysty, możliwe że ostatnim. Wedlug Władysławy Jaworskiej zostal namalowany w 1916 i de facto figuruje w jej zbiorze dzieł artysty jako ostatni. Mimo że kompozycja tego obrazu pozostaje symbolistyczna, światło łagodnieje, kolory jaśnieją a atmosfera staje się wręcz beztroska.