90 - BONDY, Walter (1880–1940). “Post-Impressionist Landscape.” Oil on canvas, 58 x 71 cm, signed lower left and dated 1928. Now recognized as one of the greatest Post-Impressionist painters from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, he studied architecture and drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna before studying for two years at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. In 1903, he moved to Paris’s Montparnasse district and frequented the café Le Dôme, where he became a regular until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Returning to Berlin in 1914, he married a Frenchwoman, Cécile Houdy. He acquired Austrian citizenship. As an art critic and dealer, he traveled between Germany and France. Beginning in 1931, having taken refuge in France, he settled with his wife and daughter in Sanary-sur-Mer. In this town, he earned his living primarily as a photographer. Since more than 300 of the artist’s paintings disappeared in Austria after 1938, little is known about his work. In his early career, Walter Bondy painted portraits of socialites. He later devoted himself to landscapes and nudes. Deeply influenced by Impressionist painting and by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri Matisse, he employed a fragmented brushstroke and a vivid color palette in his paintings. A passionate collector, he even owned two Van Gogh paintings for a time. *The Blue Pavilion in Saint-Cloud*, painted in 1906 and exhibited at the Berlin Secession in 1907, was likely the most ambitious painting of his early career.