32 ARTS
Félix Vallotton (1865-
1925) was nothing if not
an oddball, said Mark
Hudson in The Daily
Telegraph. He is often
mentioned as one among
“many brilliant young
artists milling around the
cafés and studios of fin-de-
siècle Paris”, but until
now, few have really
considered quite how
peculiar and inventive
he really was. Born in
Switzerland, Vallotton
moved to Paris at 16 and
fell in with “a group of
radical young painters”
whose ranks included
Pierre Bonnard and
Édouard Vuillard. “Yet
even among this band
of bohemian outsiders,
Vallotton seems to have
been afigure apart”; his art dipped “in and out of styles and eras”
at will, subverting the visual clichés of his time and repeatedly
defying his audience’s expectations. This “revelatory” new
exhibition, featuring around 100 paintings and prints that
consistently surprise and delight, takesachronological look at
Vallotton’s career. It’sa“fascinating” show that suggests its
subject was “one of the most distinctive”–and weirdest –
painters of his era.
It’s impossible to pin Vallotton down, said Eddy Frankel in Time
Out. He was at once “a historically indebted traditionalist”, “a
satirical commercial printmaker” anda“fully paid-up member”
of the avant-garde. The best of his stuff is terrific. His response
to Manet’sOlympia,in
whichaprone white
woman features next to a
nonchalant black maid,
has a“lovely, odd appeal”;
his masterful prints are
“simple, direct” images
that gleefully lampoon
everyday French life. Other
highlights are the “seedy,
intense” interior scenes
depicting “canoodling
couples” amid shadows
formed of “hulking slabs”
of red and green. But it has
to be said that Vallotton
could also be “crap”. A
beach scene “looks like it
was painted by someone
who’s never seenabeach”;
aToulouse-Lautrec-
indebted image of a
“swirling waltz” is
indescribably dreadful.
Worse still isa“terrible” series of nudes, said Laura Cumming
in The Observer. Indeed, it’s hard to believe such “lumpen, cold
and crude” paintings come from the same hand that produced
masterpieces like the Holbein-esqueSelf-portrait at the Age of
Twenty(1885);the huge and startling depiction of Paris’s Bon
Marché department store; or the painting entitledThe Pond
(1909)–depicting an expanse of “depthless black water”
creeping towards terra firma “likealiving creature”. Equally
striking is the series of woodcuts of crowds running wild, with
“coats flailing and top hats scattered” as rain falls onamass of
umbrellas. Vallotton could be mediocre, but at his best, his work
is extraordinary: “once seen, never forgotten”.
The street photographer Vivian Maier
(1926-2009) wasaprofessional nanny
in Chicago’s wealthy suburbs who
remained almost wholly ignored until
her death. Many such amateurs are
often rudely lumped together as
“outsiders”, but Maier, who appears to
have been particularly knowledgeable
about the history of her art, documen-
ted her milieu with extraordinary acuity
and aremarkably distinctive style. Her
more abstract colour images of daily
life in New York and Chicago are a
particular highlight of this fascinating
show. Maier captures middle-aged
women in camel-hair coats greeting
each other at street corners; gaudily
decorated hair salons; shady saloons
full of commuters wetting their
whistles. What is particularly striking
about her work is how modern it feels:
like her more celebrated contemporary
Garry Winogrand, Maier brings the
1960s, nowadistant era, back to vivid
life. Her dated film stock proves no
barrier to viewing her pictures as
timeless depictions of urban life. Prices
range from £2,200 to £4,000.
3-5 Swallow Street, London W1 (020-
7434 4319). Until 14 September.
THE WEEK 10 August 2019
Art
Exhibition of the week Félix Vallotton: Painter of Disquiet
Royal Academy, London W1 (020-7300 8090, royalacademy.org.uk). Until 29 September
The White and the Black (La Blanche et la Noire), 1913:a“lovely, odd appeal”
Where to buy...
The Week reviews an
exhibition inaprivate gallery
Vivian Maier
at Huxley-Parlour
Randolph Street, Chicago (1977): £4,000
ABelgian motorway has been confirmed as
the site for what is being billed as the world’s
tallest public artwork, says Daniel Boffey in The
Guardian. The vast 250-tonne steel structure
–now under construction ahead of its formal
unveiling in October–will tower overastretch
of the busy E411 between the city of Namur and
Luxembourg. At 60 metres high, thes2.5mArc
Majeurwill be taller than the Statue of Liberty
(not including her pedestal) and twice as tall as
Rio de Janeiro’s statue of Christ the Redeemer.
Bigger monuments do exist–the statue of the
Indian independence hero Sardar Patel is 182
metres high–but theArc’s creator, 78-year-old
French artist Bernar Venet, claims that as a
purely artistic sculpture, his new work will be
the tallest of its type on the face of the planet.
“There is nothing like this anywhere else in the
world,” he promised.
Reaching for the sky
©R
ETO PEDRINI, ZÜRICH; ESTATE OF VIVIAN MAIER, COURTESY MALOOF COLLECTION
AND HOWARD GREENBERG GALLERY, NEW YORK; BERNAR VENET STUDIO
