Maurice Denis, Nymphe couronne de Pasquerettes, 1899, Color Lithograph, Hand-Signed

Maurice Denis

Granville 1870 - 1943 Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Nymphe couronne de Pasquerettes, 1899

Color lithograph on laid paper

Hand-signed in pencil lower right

Size: 56 x 44 cm

Good original condition

Catalogue raisonné Caill 121

This color lithograph appeared in the portfolio "Germinal" in an original edition of 100 copies, published by "La Maison moderne" in Paris, compiled by Julius Meier-Graefe.

The title "Germinal" was intended to suggest that the portfolio contained the seeds that would profoundly influence art in the coming 20th century.

Authenticity is confirmed in writing.

Maurice Denis was born the son of a railway official. In 1871, the family moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1888, he attended the Académie Julian in Paris, where Paul Sérusier introduced him to the painting style of the Pont-Aven school. In 1890, he exhibited for the first time at the Salon (with the painting "The Choirboy") and published his first theoretical article in the journal Art et Critique. He was a founding member of the artist group Les Nabis along with Pierre Bonnard, Paul Sérusier, and Édouard Vuillard; he shared a studio with Bonnard and Vuillard. In 1891, he participated in the Nabis exhibition at the Galerie Le Barc de Boutteville. Denis is considered the most important theorist of this group.

On his travels in Italy between 1890 and 1895, he studied the works of the Renaissance, particularly the works of Piero della Francesca. In 1903, Ambroise Vollard published his 216 woodcuts in the Imitation of Christ, and in 1911, he illustrated the edition of Paul Verlaine's Sagesse. Further travels followed, including to Moscow (1909), Algeria and Tunisia (1921), Palestine, Greece (1924), and the United States and Canada (1927).

His students included the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka and the British-Italian painter Daphne Maugham-Casorati.

Denis created paintings with simple forms, gently curved lines, and pale-colored surfaces. His works include murals, panel paintings, and prints, as well as book illustrations. from 1919 onward, he focused primarily on reviving religious art and founded the Ateliers d'art sacré with Georges Desvallières (1861–1950). In 1920, he created the altar mosaic in the basilica of the Abbey of Saint-Maurice in the Swiss canton of Valais. It depicts the coronation of St. Maurice. Denis became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1932, succeeding Jean-Louis Forain.

In 1937, his color lithographs "Girl before Flowering Chestnut Trees" and "Ce fut un religieux mystère" were confiscated from the Museum Folkwang in Essen during the Nazi "Degenerate Art" campaign. Both works were sold to the art dealers Hildebrand Gurlitt and Bernhard A. Böhmer, respectively, for "sale" on the art market. Their whereabouts are unknown.

Maurice Denis died in 1943 from the injuries sustained in a car accident.