29 - Tadé MAKOWSKI (Oświęcim 1882 – Paris 1932)

Tadé MAKOWSKI (Oświęcim 1882 – Paris 1932) Landscape with Houses in Normandy Painted in 1929 Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard 22 x 28 cm Signed lower right “Tadé Makowski” Inscribed and dated lower left “To André Pigelet, with best regards, 29” Provenance: Former collection of André Pigelet Passed down to the current owner Private collection, Paris Tadé Makowski, born Józef Tadeusz Makowski, was a Polish painter, draftsman, illustrator, and engraver associated with the School of Paris. He was born in 1882 in Oświęcim. After taking philosophy courses for a year, he studied from 1903 to 1908 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Jan Stanisławski and Józef Mehoffer. He moved to Paris in 1908 to continue his training and decided to settle there permanently. He frequented the Cubist painters of Montparnasse, such as Gleizes, Metzinger, Léger, Archipenko, Kickert, Mondrian, and Alma. He also became friends with Apollinaire and the poets of the Créteil Abbey. At the outbreak of World War I, the painter left for Brittany with Władysław Slewinski. During the interwar period, Makowski visited France. The artist was supported by the art dealer and gallery owner Berthe Weill, who included him in all of her exhibitions from 1920 to 1926. He died in 1932 in Paris. Early in his career, Tadé Makowski worked as a landscape painter. Once in Paris, he absorbed the teachings of Puvis de Chavannes and Cézanne. Through the 1920s, the painter experimented with numerous artistic styles, notably Cubism, and focused primarily on landscapes and still lifes. Le Douanier Rousseau and Marcel Gromaire were sources of inspiration at specific points in his life. When he began traveling throughout France, the painter created portraits and scenes of everyday rural life in a naïve realist style. Childhood and the passage of time were recurring themes in his work, as were music, folk festivals, and the world of labor. As his style matured, he incorporated a certain simplification of forms and a geometricization of figures. Makowski created a repertoire of symbolic forms. Children, resembling puppets, often appear in his paintings, which he called “masquerades.” He used them to express time and life, with all its joys and sorrows. The painter combines both lyricism and realism, using either dark or softer hues. Makowski participated in the 1913 Salon des Indépendants. He exhibited regularly at Berthe Weil’s gallery beginning in 1920. Some of his works are housed at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, as well as in Poland at the National Museum in Warsaw. E.V. The painting titled “Landscape with Houses in Normandy” was given by Tadé Makowski to his friend André Pigelet. Ernest Félix André Pigelet, the brother of Marie Pigelet (born in Gien in 1887, died in Paris in 1957), was a printer in Orléans. A passionate art lover, André Pigelet was closely connected to the circle of artists and writers; he hosted a salon in Orléans and welcomed the literary and artistic figures of his time. Marie Pigelet, André Pigelet’s sister, introduced her friend Tadé Makowski to her brother; a friendship developed between the two men, and André Pigelet frequently hosted the painter at his home. The artist gave this painting to his friend, the printer, during a stay at his home in Orléans. E.V