66 - Marc VAUX (1895–1971)

Marc VAUX (1895–1971) Evening in a Montparnasse Studio, 1925 A group in costume posing in front of a painted backdrop: men in bowler hats and top hats, a young woman in a lace-ruffled dress, and a dancer in a black leotard seated in the foreground. The reverse identifies art critic Florent Fels in the upper left, painter Pascin wearing a Tyrolean hat, art critic Maximilien Gauthier, and, in the center, painter Grégoire Michonze. Silver print 21.5 x 17 cm Small losses in the lower right corner Inscription on the reverse: Photographer’s purple stamp “PHOTO Marc VAUX / 114bis, Rue de Vaugirard / PARIS-VIe - Tel. LITtré 90-01”; annotations in blue ink: “Evening in an ‘Atelier de Montparnasse’ 1925 / top left: Florent Fels / Pascin [underlined, with a cross] / Pascin in a Tyrolean hat / 2nd from the left: Maximilien Gauthier / in the center: Michonze”; in pencil: circled numbers “27,” “9,” and “4” in the upper right, layout frames, and reference marks “1)” and “2)” Provenance: former collection of Jean-Marie Drot Born in the Orne department in 1895, Marc Vaux moved to Montparnasse after World War I and opened his studio at 114 bis Rue de Vaugirard in 1927. Nicknamed “the photographers’ photographer,” he photographed works of art and artists in their studios—from Matisse to Brancusi—worked for galleries, and covered the major Parisian art shows. A member of the Resistance during the war, he founded a mutual-aid center for artists in 1946, the magazine *Montparnasse-Carrefour des Arts* in 1948, and the Musée du Montparnasse in 1951. His collection of glass negatives, preserved at the Kandinsky Library (Centre Pompidou), constitutes an exceptional record of the School of Paris. He died in Paris in 1971.