Jean Lurçat (French, 1892-1966), , Le Trou d'Eau

Jean Lurçat (French, 1892-1966)Le Trou d'EauSigned and dated 28 bottom right, signed again and dated verso, inscribed with title and date on stretcher, oil on canvas.31 1/16 x 45 1/16 in. (78.9 x 114.5cm)PROVENANCE:The Estate of Murray H. Braun, New York, New York.Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, "Modern Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture," December 11, 1980, lot 67.Collection of Dr. Henry and Mrs. Fannie Levine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (acquired directly from the above sale).LITERATURE:Gérard Denizeau and Simone Lurçat, L’oeuvre Peint de Jean Lurçat: Catalogue Raisonné, 1910-1965, Lausanne: Acatos, 1998, no. 1928-48.NOTE:We gratefully acknowledge the Fondation Jean et Simone Lurçat, Paris for their assistance in cataloguing this work.Jean Lurçat was an artist of varied talents who is known for his diverse output of work, including paintings, ceramics and-perhaps most famously-tapestries. He began his artistic education in 1912 when he was a student of Victor Prouvé at the École de Nancy, and continued on to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Colarossi. In addition to his formal education, Lurçat surrounded himself with the creative intelligentsia of Paris and travelled extensively through Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. Thereby, he was exposed to a variety of influences and artistic movements that would go on to inspire his own work. He found success early on, exhibiting regularly in the mid-1920s at the prominent Parisian gallery of Jeanne Bucher, who also showed Hans Arp, Max Ernst, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. He would go on to have solo exhibitions in galleries around the world, even finding himself in Philadelphia in the early 1930s, where he met Albert Barnes who purchased two of his works for The Barnes Foundation. The present paintings are excellent examples of the artist's work of the 1920s, during which time he made extensive explorations of surrealist subject matter.