Post Fauvist School (XX) - NO RESERVE - Colorful Urban Landscape

European School, early 20th century
City roofs — c. 1930–1950

Technique: oil on burlap
Dimensions of the work: 60 × 50 cm
Overall dimensions with frame: 81 × 70 cm
Proposed chronology: early 20th century, probably c. 1930–1950
Style: post-Fauvism / modern figuration
Signature: signed and dated in the lower left corner; signature currently difficult to read
Provenance: private collection

Description

A striking and enigmatic oil on burlap belonging to the renewal of European painting in the first half of the 20th century.

The work depicts an urban view seen from an elevated vantage point, where rooftops, facades and party walls progressively cease to function as architectural elements and become an autonomous composition of color planes.

The artist organizes the city through a sequence of reds, deep blues, ochres, greens and broken whites, using chromaticity with a freedom clearly inherited from Fauvism and post-Fauvist European currents.

It does not seem interested in a exact topographic description. The city is pictorially reinterpreted.

Buildings overlap, perspectives are compressed, and certain facades acquire almost abstract dimensions. The result is an image that is simultaneously recognizable yet profoundly modern.

Color and pictorial construction

One of the principal attractions of the work is its extraordinary chromatic architecture.

The intense blue of the backgrounds and roofs functions as a counterpoint to the reds, oranges and ochers of the buildings, while certain green, yellow or viola-gray facades introduce deliberate ruptures within the composition.

Traditional perspective is subordinated to color.

The buildings seem to advance or recede not so much by geometric rules but by the contrast between color masses. This way of constructing space ties the painting to the investigations developed after Fauvism, when numerous European artists began transforming the urban landscape into a territory of formal experimentation.

The brushwork is direct and visible. The coarse burlap texture actively participates in the surface, adding irregularity, vibration, and a particularly attractive texture.

In certain passages the paint is applied more densely; in others, the artist allows the substrate’s own structure to dialogue with the pigment.

The city as a modern landscape

The composition also holds an interesting tension between order and spontaneity.

The façades are organized by rectangles, vertical and horizontal lines, but architectural regularity is constantly broken by blotches, sloped coverings, barely suggested windows, and large expanses of color.

Urban elements — poles, cables, windows, rooftops and chimneys — are reduced to pictorial signs.

This simplification is especially effective in the small light-colored windows that appear repeatedly on the dark façades: a few brushstrokes are enough to suggest a whole inhabited city.

The almost total absence of human figures further reinforces a peculiar sense of urban quiet, as if the painter wished to record the city in a suspended moment.

A signature still to be investigated

In the lower left corner there remains an original signature, currently difficult to read.

The identity of the artist cannot yet be established with certainty, so the work is prudently offered as European School of the first half of the 20th century.

This element adds an extra interest to the piece.

Its pictorial language, support, chromaticity, and craftsmanship clearly place it within the context of European figurative vanguards and their post-Fauvist derivations, while the author’s identity remains open to future research.

For the collector, this is precisely one of the most suggestive aspects of the painting: a signed work, technically consistent and with an evident chromatic personality, whose name still awaits recovery.

Condition

Overall condition consistent with its age.

The painting preserves a rich and expressive surface, in which the burlap’s own texture is an essential part of the technique. Small irregularities, wear, and signs of the passage of time are visible.

It is recommended to study carefully the detail photographs, which form an integral part of the description.

Dimensions of the work: 60 × 50 cm
Dimensions overall with frame: 81 × 70 cm

The frame is included as a gift, and therefore will not be a subject of claim.

Barcelona Art Gallery ships via a professional specialized company, using custom-made crates and foam protection. We ship worldwide. Any possible surcharges arising from large format or certain continental or non-EU destinations will be borne by the buyer.