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Frederick Carl FRIESEKE (Osowo 1874- Le Mesnil sur Blangy 19…
See original version (French)
39
-
Frederick Carl FRIESEKE (Osowo 1874- Le Mesnil sur Blangy 19…
See original version (French)
Estimate €10,000 - €20,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Frederick Carl FRIESEKE (Osowo 1874- Le Mesnil sur Blangy 1939)
Woman with sewing basket / woman with mirror, circa 1909 and 1914
Oil on panel recto/verso
61 x 49.5 cm
Signed lower left F.C Frieseke
The committee responsible for compiling Frieseke's Catalogue raisonné has examined the double-sided painting Woman with Sewing Basket / Woman with Mirror and accepted it for inclusion. Nicholas Kilmer, editor of the catalogue, is currently writing a supplementary opinion on the work(s), which will be published shortly. He dates the signed recto to 1914 and the verso, an unfinished sketch, to an earlier date, circa 1909.
Painted in the hushed atmosphere of an intimate interior, this work by Frederick Carl Frieseke demonstrates the subtle synthesis he achieved between classical subject matter and modern impressionist composition. Having settled in France in 1898, the artist was part of a movement of American painters who came to learn from the European masters, attending museums, Salons and Parisian academies, before gradually freeing themselves from conventions to explore a freer style of painting, attentive to the effects of light and everyday life.
Trained in Chicago and then New York, Frieseke continued his apprenticeship in Paris, notably at the Académie Julian with Jean-Joseph-Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. His early work was marked by a certain decorative refinement, also influenced by James McNeill Whistler. However, it was his gradual move to Giverny from the 1900s onwards that marked a decisive turning point. In this village, which had become a major artistic centre under the impetus of Claude Monet, Frieseke found a privileged terrain for experimentation.
In Giverny, where he stayed every summer before settling there permanently in 1906, close to Monet's home, Frieseke joined a colony of mainly American artists. In this fertile context, marked by the practice of painting in the open air and by collective emulation, he developed his aesthetic, characterised by a clear palette, vibrant brushstrokes and a constant interest in the play of light. While many of his contemporaries favoured landscapes, Frieseke stood out for his attachment to the female figure, often depicted in light-filled interiors or enclosed gardens.
The painting presented here fully illustrates this period. The scene, centred on a young woman absorbed in a domestic activity, favours an intimate approach in which narrative gives way to plastic research. The diffuse treatment of light unifies the composition, while the fragmented brushstrokes enliven the textile surfaces and skin tones. The attention paid to the decor - fabrics, furniture, objects - reveals a sensitivity close to the taste for ornament that runs through Frieseke's work, without ever compromising the atmospheric coherence of the whole.
This work was also part of a period of growing recognition for the artist, whose success at international exhibitions - from Saint-Louis to Munich to the Venice Biennale - consecrated his talent. A member of the Giverny Group, exhibited in New York and honoured in both France and the United States, Frieseke fully embodies the transatlantic generation that, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, helped to disseminate and renew the principles of Impressionism. Above and beyond its subject, this painting reflects a precise moment in artistic history: the period when Impressionism, born in France, became a shared language, reinterpreted by artists from elsewhere, notably the United States.
See original version (French)
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