3262 - PAUL DELVAUX

PAUL DELVAUX (Wanze 1897–1994 Veurne) Les cerf-volants/Les dames aux cerfs-volants. 1950. Oil on panel. Signed, inscribed, and dated lower right: P. DELVAUX / ST. IDESBALD / 1-50. 92.3 × 122.2 cm. Provenance: - André Delvaux, Rhode-Saint-Genèse. - Staempfli Gallery, New York. - Richard S. Zeisler, New York, acquired from the above gallery on May 19, 1965. - National Gallery of Art, Washington, received as a gift from the above. - Sotheby’s auction, New York, November 7, 2007, lot 57. - Swiss collection, acquired at the above auction. Exhibited: - Venice 1950, XXV Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte, June 8–October 15, 1950, no. 337 (label on the reverse). - Antwerp 1951, L’Art contemporain. Salon 1951, Stedelijke Feestzaal Meir, April–May 1951, no. 180. - Amsterdam 1952, Thirteen Belgian Painters, Stedelijk Museum, October 17–November 30, 1952, no. 36. - Charleroi 1957, 31st Salon of the Royal Artistic and Literary Circle of Charleroi. Paul Delvaux Retrospective, Salle de la Bourse, March–April 1957, no. 56 (label on the reverse). - Boitsfort 1957, XIIe Salon, Maison Haute, November 23–December 8, 1957, no. 10. - Ostend 1962, Paul Delvaux, Museum of Fine Arts, July 1–August 31, 1962, no. 37 (label on the reverse). - Arnhem 1964, “Reality and Imagination: Belgian Surrealists,” Gemeentemuseum, July 12–September 6, 1964, no. 11 (label on the reverse). - Mons 1965, “Hainaut Cinq.” Hommage à Paul Delvaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts, March 1965, no. 5. - New York 1969, Paul Delvaux, Staempfli Gallery, March 11–29, 1969, no. 9. - Rotterdam 1973, Paul Delvaux, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, April 13–June 17, 1973, no. 47. - Tokyo/Funabashi/Yamanashi/Asahikawa/Osaka 1983, The Surrealism Exhibition, Isetan Museum, February 27–March 22, 1983/Seibu Museum, March 25–April 19, 1983/Prefectural Museum of Art, May 15–June 19, 1983/Hokkaido Asahikawa Museum of Art, June 25–August 7, 1983/Daimaru Museum, August 24–September 12, 1983, no. 61 (label on the reverse). - Brussels 1997, Paul Delvaux Retrospective, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, March 21–July 27, 1997, no. 78 (label on the reverse). Bibliography: - Michel Butor, Jean Clair, and Suzanne Houbart-Wilkin: *Delvaux. Catalogue de l’œuvre peint*, Lausanne/Paris 1975, p. 230, no. 199 (ill.; with incorrect dimensions). - Paul-Aloïse De Bock: Paul Delvaux. The Man. The Painter, Hamburg 1965, p. 30 (ill.). - Paul Caso: Le Cercle Hainaut Cinq at the Musée de Mons. A Tribute to Paul Delvaux, in: Le Soir, Brussels, March 18, 1965. - Paul-Aloïse De Bock: Paul Delvaux, Brussels 1967, p. 296, no. 101 (ill.). - José Vovelle: Le Surréalisme en Belgique, Brussels 1972, p. 187. - Peter Sager: Paul Delvaux, in: Das Kunstwerk, Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne/Mainz, May 1973, vol. XXVI, no. 3, p. 41. - Jacques Sojcher: Paul Delvaux ou la passion purifiée, Paris 1991, no. 87, p. 63 (ill.). When Paul Delvaux painted “Les cerfs-volants” in January 1950, his distinctive pictorial language had already been established for several years. Since the mid-1930s, the Belgian artist had been developing a highly individual approach to painting, transforming everyday situations and familiar places into scenes of unusual, often unsettling strangeness. His precise figurative style contrasts with the ambiguity of the narratives his paintings seem to suggest. Women occupy a central place in his work, and here Delvaux brings this recurring subject together with a coastal landscape and the activity of kite-flying. An important influence on the development of his art was his encounter with the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, particularly at the “Minotaure” exhibition of Surrealist art in Brussels in 1934. De Chirico’s deserted squares, classical architecture, and unconventional perspectives left a lasting impression. Yet Delvaux crafted a pictorial world entirely his own, combining female figures, architectural fragments, train stations, and landscapes in unexpected ways. Although he is regarded as one of the leading figures of Belgian Surrealism, his place within the movement is distinctive. Deliberate provocation was less central to his work than to that of Surrealists more deeply engaged with theoretical and psychoanalytical ideas. Even so, the heightened artificiality of his compositions gives them an unmistakably bizarre, Surrealist character. Delvaux painted this work in Saint-Idesbald on the Belgian North Sea coast, where he had spent time regularly since the 1940s. Coastal landscapes—and the sea in particular—were important subjects for him. Throughout the 1940s, he repeatedly returned to maritime imagery, including mermaids. While these figures often inhabit fantastical settings, the shore in “Les cerfs-volants” serves as the backdrop for a scene that initially appears entirely ordinary. Sketches and drawings show that Delvaux had begun exploring the subject of women flying kites as early as 1949. In this painting, he develops it into a meticulous