32 - Paul VOGLER (Paris 1852 – Verneuil-sur-Avre 1904)

Paul VOGLER (Paris 1852 – Verneuil-sur-Avre 1904) Snow-Covered Road in Winter Light Original oil on canvas 73 x 93 cm Signed lower left: P. Vogler Exhibition: Paul Vogler Exhibition, Galerie Ambroise Vollard, Paris, February–March 1899 This lot is being presented as a temporary import. This lot will be sold under the general VAT regime (at a rate of 5.5% of the total price). Vogler, the son of a little-known painter, was largely self-taught. After receiving his initial training from his father, he pursued no further professional training and never attended a school or academy of fine arts. He was an admirer and friend of Alfred Sisley, who influenced both his color palette and his technique and who helped him early in his career. Vogler was also a close friend of the art critic Aurier, the leading advocate for Gauguin and Van Gogh. In his painting, Vogler displayed a fluency and sensitivity often noted by his contemporaries. His free application of color earned him a place among the Impressionist landscape painters; he had several ardent admirers among the early collectors of this movement. Unfortunately, he seems to have squandered the income his success had brought him. Nevertheless, Vogler produced magnificent paintings, renowned for their fresh, harmonious colors as well as their radiant depiction of light, which were exhibited alongside works by Bonnard, Vuillard, Lautrec, Anquetin, and Signac at the Vollard Gallery. His subjects included, notably, “The Canal de Saint-Martin,” “The Quai de Valmy in Winter,” “The Banks of the Oise at L’Isle-Adam,” and “Haystacks in the Winter Sun.” While Vogler was generally admired, Pissarro criticized him (just as he criticized Raffaelli and Helleu) when, in the late 1880s, Pissarro adopted a quasi-Pointillist technique that Vogler rejected. The critic Lugné Poc took a more positive view and included Vogler’s name among several artists he admired, alongside Vuillard, Denis, and Sérusier. The Galerie Ambroise Vollard organized a “Paul Vogler Exhibition” from February to March 1899, which featured some thirty-eight landscapes. The reviews published in *La Revue des beaux-arts et des lettres* (March 15, 1899) and in the *Mercure de France* (April 1899) were glowing, and one critic remarked: A self-taught painter on the fringes of Impressionism, Paul Vogler was influenced for a time by Alfred Sisley. His simple and vigorous technique, which highlights the effects of light, would bring him success. He designed the sets for Maurice Maeterlinck’s *Pelléas et Mélisande* in 1893 for the Théâtre de l’Œuvre de Lugné-Poe. He is known for his landscapes of the Midi (Cassis, Marseille, etc.), Brittany (Gulf of Morbihan, etc.), and numerous views of the Seine and the Oise (Éragny, Neuville-sur-Oise, Pontoise, etc.). He was particularly drawn to snowy landscapes, twilight scenes, and atmospheric effects, which allowed him to showcase his dynamic and expressive style.