Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1900 to 1904, were influenced by the neo-Impressionism of Georges Seurat and Henri-Edmond Cross. Between 1904 and 1907, Metzinger worked in the Divisionist and Fauvist styles with a strong Cézannian component, leading to some of the first proto-Cubist works.
Paintings by Jean Metzinger
Au Vélodrome (1912)
Au Vélodrome, also known as At the Cycle-Race Track and Le cycliste, is a painting by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger. The work illustrates the final meters of the Paris–Roubaix race, and portrays its 1912 winner Charles Crupelandt. Metzinger's painting is the first in Modernist art to represent a specific sporting event and its champion.
Au Vélodrome remained in Metzinger's atelier until it was shipped to New York, where it was shown to the public for the first time, 8 March to 3 April 1915, at the Third Exhibition of Contemporary French Art, Carstairs (Carroll) Gallery—with works by Pach, Gleizes, Picasso, de la Fresnaye, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Derain, Duchamp, Duchamp-Villon and Villon.
Woman with a Horse (1912)
Woman with a Horse (French: La Femme au Cheval, also known as L'Écuyère and Kvinde med hest) is a large oil painting created toward the end of 1911, early 1912, by the French artist Jean Metzinger (1883–1956). The work was exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants (20 March – 16 May) in 1912 and the Salon de la Section d'Or, 1912. The following year La Femme au Cheval was reproduced in The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations by Guillaume Apollinaire (1913).
The artist has broken down the picture plane into facets, presenting multiple aspects of the subject in succession and/or simultaneously. This concept first pronounced by Metzinger in 1910—since considered a founding principle of Cubism—would soon find its way into the foundations of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics; the fact that a complete description of one and the same subject may require diverse points of view which defy a unique description. The painting was owned by the poet Joseph Houot (known as Jacques Nayral). In 1918 La Femme au Cheval was exhibited at International Kunst, Kleis Kunsthandel, Copenhagen, an exhibition arranged by Herwarth Walden.
Soldier at a Game of Chess (1915)
Soldier at a Game of Chess (in French Soldat jouant aux échecs, or Le Soldat à la partie d'échecs, also referred to as Joueur d'échecs), is a painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger. While serving as a medical orderly during World War I in Sainte-Menehould, France, Metzinger bore witness to the ravages of war firsthand. Rather than depicting such horrors, Metzinger chose to represent a poilu sitting at a game of chess, smoking a cigarette. The military subject of this painting is possibly a self-portrait.
During March 1915, Metzinger was called to serve the military, and was invalided out of service later that year. Soldier at a Game of Chess was painted either before or during his mobilization. Evidence found in a letter by Metzinger addressed to Léonce Rosenberg suggests the work was painted before his March 1915 mobilization, and possibly late 1914.
The Blue Bird (Metzinger) (1912)
The Blue Bird (French: L'Oiseau bleu) is an oil painting created in 1912–1913 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger. L'Oiseau bleu, one of Metzinger's most recognizable and frequently referenced works, was first exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1913 (cat. no. 2087), several months after the publication of the first (and only) Cubist manifesto, Du "Cubisme", written by Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes (1912). It was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin (titled Der blaue Vogel, cat. no. 287).
Apollinaire described L'Oiseau bleu as a 'very brilliant painting' and 'his most important work to date'. L'Oiseau bleu, acquired by the City of Paris in 1937, forms part of the permanent collection at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Woman with a Hat (Metzinger) (1906)
Femme au Chapeau (French: Femme au Chapeau or Lucie au chapeau) is an oil painting by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger, created c. 1906. The work is executed in a highly personal Divisionist style with a marked Proto-Cubist component during the height of Fauvism. Femme au Chapeau exhibits a presentiment of Metzinger's subsequent interest in the faceting of form associated with Cubism. The painting is part of the collection of the Korban Art Foundation.
Femme au Chapeau is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 44.8 x 36.8 cm (17 5/8 x 14½ in.), signed J.Metzinger (lower right). The work—executed in a style consistent with other works by Metzinger created between 1905 and 1907, such as Two Nudes in an Exotic Landscape—is a portrait of an elegant women, Metzinger's future wife, Lucie Soubiron, gazing self-assuredly directly at the spectator, wearing a fashionable wide-brimmed hat with a large green-bleu bow tied in a simple knot.
Tea Time (Metzinger) (1911)
Tea Time (French: Le Goûter, also known as Femme à la Cuillère or Woman with a teaspoon) is an oil painting created in 1911 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger. It was exhibited in Paris at the Salon d'Automne of 1911, and the Salon de la Section d'Or, 1912.
The painting was first reproduced (illustrated) in Chroniques Médico-Artistique, Le Sabotage Anatomique au Salon d'Automne (1911). The following year it was reproduced in Du "Cubisme", by Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes (1912). In 1913 it was published in The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations (Les Peintres Cubistes) by Guillaume Apollinaire. The painting was subsequently published in Arthur Jerome Eddy's Cubists and Post-impressionism, 1914, titled The Taster.
Woman with a Fan (Metzinger, 1913) (1913)
Woman with a Fan (French: La Femme à l'Éventail) is a painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger. The work was exhibited in 1914 at Moderni Umeni, S.V.U. Mánes, Prague. A 1914 photograph taken at the exhibition in Prague was published in the magazine Zlatá Praha showing Woman with a Fan hanging next to another work by Metzinger known as En Canot (Im Boot, The Boat), 1913. Donated by Mr and Mrs Sigmund Kunstadter in 1959, Woman with a Fan forms part of the permanent collection in Gallery 391B (Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture) at the Art Institute of Chicago, US.
Woman with a Fan, signed JMetzinger (lower left) is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 92.7 x 65.7 cm (36 1/2 x 25 7/8 in.), representing an elegantly dressed Parisian woman, perhaps Lucie Soubiron, whom Metzinger married in 1909, painted in a geometrically Cubist style with a stylish feathered or plumed hat while holding a fan (visible to the lower right). A vase on a table and decorative wall paper can be seen in the background. The vertical composition is divided, fragmented or faceted into series rectangular and square surfaces accentuated by the flowing curvilinear forms of the models garments and hat.
Man with a Pipe (1912)
Man with a Pipe, also referred to as Portrait of an American Smoker, Portrait of an American Smoking, American Smoking and American Man, is a painting by the French Cubist artist Jean Metzinger. The work was reproduced on the cover of catalogue of the Exhibition of Cubist and Futurist Pictures, Boggs & Buhl Department Store, Pittsburgh, forming part of a show in 1913 that traveled to several U.S. cities: Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, and Philadelphia.
In 1914 a catalogue was printed for the occasion of the Milwaukee leg of the show, 16 April to 12 May, titled Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture in "The Modern Spirit", hosted by the Milwaukee Art Society. Artists represented included Lucile Swan, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Manierre Dawson, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Gustave Miklos, Francis Picabia, and Henry Fitch Taylor. Metzinger's painting titled Portrait of "American Smoking" figured as No. 101 of the catalogue. And much as the outcry that resulted from the Cubists works at the Armory Show in New York, Chicago and Boston, this traveling exhibition created an uproar in other major U.S. cities. Though he did not exhibit with his Cubist colleagues at the Armory Show in 1913, Metzinger, with this painting and others, contributed in 1913 to the integration of modern art into the United States.
Man with Pipe (1912)
Man with Pipe (French: Le Fumeur) is a Cubist painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger. It has been suggested that the sitter depicted in the painting represents either Guillaume Apollinaire or Max Jacob. The work was exhibited in the spring of 1914 at the Salon des Indépendants, Paris, Champ-de-Mars, March 1–April 30, 1914, no. 2289, Room 11. A photograph of Le Fumeur was published in Le Petit Comtois (Au Salon des Indépendants, Les chefs-d'œuvre modernes), 13 March 1914, for the occasion of the exhibition. In July 1914 the painting was exhibited in Berlin at Herwarth Walden’s Galerie Der Sturm, with works by Albert Gleizes, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Jacques Villon.
Le Fumeur, titled Man with Pipe and dated c. 1912, forms part of the permanent collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (gift of G. David Thompson, 1953).
Dancer in a Café (1912)
Dancer in a Café (also known as Danseuse au café or Au Café Concert and Danseuse) is an oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger. The work was created while Metzinger and Albert Gleizes, in preparation for the Salon de la Section d'Or, were publishing, Du "Cubisme", the first major defense of the Cubist movement, and it was first displayed (under the title Danseuse) at the 1912 Salon d'Automne in Paris. The work proved controversial within the Municipal Council of Paris, causing debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to exhibit such 'barbaric' art, with the Cubists being defended by the Socialist deputy Marcel Sembat.
Dancer in a Café was first reproduced in a photograph published in an article entitled Au Salon d'Automne "Les Indépendants" in the French newspaper Excelsior, 2 Octobre 1912. The painting is now located at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo New York.
Two Nudes (1910)
Two Nudes (French: Deux Nus; also known as Two Women and Dones en un paisatge) is an early Cubist painting by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger. The work was exhibited at the first Cubist manifestation, in Room 41 of the 1911 Salon des Indépendants, Paris. At this exhibition the Cubist movement was effectively launched before the general public by five artists: Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay and Léger. This was the first exhibition during which artists, writers, critics and the public at large encountered and spoke about Cubism. The result of the group show is a succès de scandale.
The following year Metzinger's Deux Nus, titled Dones en un paisatge, was exhibited at Galeries Dalmau, Exposició d'Art Cubista, in Barcelona, 20 April through 10 May 1912 (cat. 45). This was the first avant-garde art exhibition in Spain, and the first declared group exhibition of Cubism worldwide.
Woman with a Fan (Metzinger, 1912) (1912)
Woman with a Fan (French: Femme à l'Éventail, also known as The Lady) is an oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger (1883–1956). The painting was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, 1912, Paris (hung in the decorative arts section inside the Salon Bourgeois of La Maison Cubiste, the Cubist House). A 1912 photograph of Femme à l'Éventail hanging on a wall inside the Salon Bourgeois was published in The Sun (New York, N.Y.), 10 November 1912. The same photograph was reproduced in The Literary Digest, 30 November 1912.
Metzinger's Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'Automne created a controversy in the Municipal Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such 'barbaric' art. The Cubists were defended by the Socialist politician, Marcel Sembat. This painting was realized as Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes, in preparation for the Salon de la Section d'Or, published a major defence of Cubism, resulting in the first theoretical essay on the new movement, Du "Cubisme".