Mildred Bendall, French 1891-1977- Poissons tropicaux; oil on panel, signed upper right, 36 x 45cm (ARR) Provenance: Whitford Fine Art, London, where purchased by the present owner. Note: This work is a typical piece by the French painter Mildred...

Mildred Bendall, French 1891-1977- Poissons tropicaux; oil on panel, signed upper right, 36 x 45cm (ARR) Provenance: Whitford Fine Art, London, where purchased by the present owner. Note: This work is a typical piece by the French painter Mildred Bendall. Bendall trained with Felix Carme, and later joined the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris. It was whilst studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière that Bendall came into contact with many of the influential artists who were residing in Paris in the early twentieth century, an experience which had a significant impact on Bendall’s own art. Bendall’s friendship with many of the most famous artists in twentieth-century Europe is demonstrated by the fact that Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Utrillo, among others, submitted work for the yearly exhibitions of the Artistes Indépendants bordelaise, which was co-founded by Bendall. Bendall’s close relationship with Henri Matisse was arguably the connection which had the greatest effect on the paintings which the former produced. Elements of the Fauvist approach espoused by Matisse can be perceived in much of Bendall’s work, and is particularly evident in the bright, vibrant colours of this piece. Bendall’s paintings were exhibited by the Galerie de Paris in 1936 alongside work by Kees van Dongen, Raoul Dufy and Max Jacob. Her work is now in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Paris Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Bordeaux.