3023 - CUNO AMIET

CUNO AMIET (Solothurn 1868–1961 Oschwand) Breton Still Life. 1893. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower left: Amiet 93. 46 × 38 cm. Provenance: - Private collection, Mrs. Gertrud Dübi, Solothurn (label on the reverse). - Private collection, Switzerland, since 1976. - Christie’s Zurich auction, June 7, 2010, lot 81. - Private collection, Switzerland, acquired at the above auction. Exhibited: Zurich 1938, Cuno Amiet. Drawings. Watercolors. Oil Paintings. Pastels. Wax Colors, Kunsthaus Zürich, May 14–June 12, 1938, no. 98. Literature: - Georg Mauner: From Pont-Aven to the ‘Brücke’—Amiet as ‘pons inter pontes,’ in: exhibition catalog Cuno Amiet. From Pont-Aven to the ‘Brücke,’ Bern and Geneva 1999–2001, p. 21, as “Still Life.” - Georg Mauner: Cuno Amiet – the “Fruit Harvests” of 1912, Zurich 2002, no. B17 (ill.). - Franz Müller and Viola Radlach: Cuno Amiet. The Paintings 1883–1919, ed. Swiss Institute for Art Research, Zurich 2014, vol. I, p. 126, no. 1893.25 (ill.). This still life from 1893 belongs to a small group of works from Cuno Amiet’s years in Brittany in which he explored the incidence and effects of light. In a letter to his family in Solothurn, complaining about the “philistines on the jury,” Amiet describes the distinctive lighting of Breton interiors, “where the light enters only through the door and a small hole in the wall” (letter from Cuno Amiet, March 22, 1893, Cuno Amiet estate). His fascination with these conditions is also evident in the depiction of the apples on the cloth, their forms emerging from the dark background in the dim light.