Arthur B. Carles
(1882–1952)
16. Untitled Still Life, c. 1910–12 Oil on panel, 13 x 16½ inches Signed at lower right: Carles Signed on verso of panel: Carles
provenance The artist; to His daughter, Mercedes Matter; to [Avery Galleries, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania]; to Simon Parkes, New York; to Private collection, until the present
Although he moved through various periods—tonalism to fauvism to cubism— Arthur Carles grew as an artist in an evolutionary manner, adding new techniques rather than remaking himself entirely in each phase. He often employed his past repertoire of devices in concert with his newest interests, balancing a variety of styles in a single canvas. The present work is a striking example of the artist’s early mastery of still life in the fauvist vein. Because he returned again and again to older maneuvers, it is sometimes difficult to date Carles’s work. The present still life’s origin is clear: it is certainly from his earliest fauvist period, when his fauvist predilections were strongest. The broken marks, borrowed from André Derain and Henri Matisse, add color to a cautiously addressed middle-ground. The palette of viridian, alizarin, and Prussian blue are straight from the Matisse–Cézanne cookbook, but here applied with Carles’s own virtuosic flourish. Beginning in 1908, Carles stayed in a village outside of Paris named Voulangis par Crecy-en-Brie, and sometime after arriving there, Carles bought a quantity of small wooden panels. In three sizes, the panels were beveled in a low grade, making them convenient to fit into a plein air paint box. Between 1908 and 1912, Carles made a series of on-site paintings on these Parisianmanufactured panels. The present work is on such a panel, and while it is possible that it was painted slightly later, it is unlikely that he transported any significant number of untouched panels back to Philadelphia after his tenure in Voulangis. The style, technique, and support all suggest the work was completed either in 1910–12 or around 1922, the only other time he would have been working on panel in this fashion. While he pursued other methods and media in the interim and afterwards, the early years of both decades were explosively successful times for the artist.
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