54 - André LHOTE (Bordeaux 1885–Paris 1962)

André LHOTE (Bordeaux 1885–Paris 1962) Bouquet of Flowers and Hat Original oil on canvas 46 x 55 cm Signed lower right: A. Lhote We would like to thank Ms. Dominique Bermann Martin for confirming the authenticity of this work. Provenance: Private collection André Lhote occupies a unique place in the history of 20th-century French painting: an avant-garde artist, an enlightened theorist, and an influential educator, he was one of the key figures in the evolution of Cubism toward a renewed practice of pictorial modernity. Born in Bordeaux on July 5, 1885, into a modest family, he was initially trained in decorative sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in his hometown before definitively choosing painting in 1905, at which point he left the family workshop to immerse himself in Parisian artistic life. Upon arriving in Paris in 1906, Lhote immediately entered the independent salons, where he exhibited landscapes inspired by Fauvism and the work of Paul Gauguin and later Paul Cézanne—whose retrospective at the 1911 Salon d’Automne profoundly shaped his conception of form. Very quickly, he moved toward a structured interpretation of the pictorial language: as early as 1912, he aligned himself with the artists of the Section d’Or group, participating in their events and adopting a synthetic Cubism that was rigorous yet committed to figuration. The period you depict in your 1908 drawing corresponds to these years of transition, when the classical foundations of space were being reshaped while new possibilities for the geometrization of volumes were being explored. World War I interrupted his activities, but beginning in 1917, Lhote consolidated his pictorial language and his reputation. Influenced by tradition, he rejected the excesses of abstraction and always sought to reconcile modernity with the classical heritage, creating a dialogue in his compositions between Cubist structure and a legible, expressive architecture of space. In the postwar period, Lhote was not content to be merely a creator: he became a thinker and a mentor. Having founded his own Academy in Montparnasse in 1922, he taught generations of artists from around the world, instilling in them a rigorous approach to composition alongside a keen sense of color and composition. Every summer, he set up his “summer academy” in Mirmande (Drôme), a village he revitalized and where he created an environment conducive to the study of light and landscapes. Later, in the village of Gordes (Vaucluse)—which he discovered in 1938—he bought a house and became one of the driving forces behind the local revival, attracting artists and friends, including Marc Chagall, who stayed there during the war. The 1930s and 1940s marked a decisive phase in the development of his artistic maturity: the Cubist spirit remained present, but was reinterpreted through a freer palette and spatial structure, as evidenced by numerous landscape paintings and compositions from this period. The works you are presenting from the early 1940s bear witness to this synthesis of formal rigor and chromatic expressiveness, by an artist who, while remaining faithful to his conception of a constructed painting, incorporated the modern influences of a France in the midst of profound change. Alongside his work as a painter, Lhote was a renowned writer and art critic: he contributed to *La Nouvelle Revue Française* from 1917 to 1940, published treatises on landscape and the figure, and established himself as one of the most perceptive thinkers on modern painting. Until his death in Paris on January 24, 1962, he led an exceptional career, blending tradition, innovation, and pedagogy, and leaving behind a body of work and a legacy of teaching that continue to inspire artists and art lovers alike. André Lhote (1885–1962) occupies a unique place in the history of 20th-century French painting: as both an avant-garde artist, an enlightened theorist, and an influential educator, he was one of the major figures in the evolution of Cubism toward a renewed practice of pictorial modernity. Born in Bordeaux on July 5, 1885, into a modest family, he was initially trained in decorative sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in his hometown before definitively turning to painting in 1905, at which point he left the family workshop to immerse himself in Parisian artistic life. Upon arriving in Paris in 1906, Lhote immediately entered the independent salons, where he exhibited landscapes inspired by Fauvism and the work of Paul Gauguin and later Paul Cézanne—whose retrospective at the 1911 Salon d’Automne profoundly influenced his conception of form. Very quickly, he moved toward a structured interpretation of the language of painting