*This work is sold, but the artist is regularly available in our inventory		Louis Valtat* Dieppe 1869-1952 Paris In the Garden, Versailles c. 1898 Oil on canvas 16 1/4 x 13 1/8 inches (41.2 x 33.3 cm.) Signed with initials lower left: L.V. Literature: Dr. Jean Valtat, Louis Valtat, Catalogue de l’oeuvre peint 1869-1952, vol. 1, no. 194, Paris, 1977: illustrated p. 22. This painting is accompanied by a photocopy of the original certificate of authenticity from Dr. Jean Valtat dated February 2, 1961 and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné under the sponsorship of The Wildenstein Institute. According to Louis-Andre Valtat, this painting represents the small staircase at the house of the artist’s parents in Versailles and probably dates to 1898. Louis Valtat had a long and prolific career, in which he took part in the cutting-edge trends in neo-Impressionism and became the forerunner of Fauvism, anticipating its advances in color ten years before its height at the beginning of the twentieth century.  Born in Dieppe and raised near Versailles, Valtat applied to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1886, where he studied briefly with the Symbolist master Gustave Moreau.  He completed his studies under Jules Dupré at the Académie Julien, where he formed friendships with many who would become part of the front line of the Modernist Movement at the end of the nineteenth century, including Albert André, Pierre Bonnard, and Edouard Vuillard.  Following the influence of Gauguin and the Neo-Impressionists in their search for pure light and color, Valtat moved to Le Var, east of Bordeaux, in 1890.  His discovery of the light of the French Mediterranean brought him to use intense colors and to herald the freedom of fauvism. Upon his return to Paris, he participated in the Salon des Indépendents of 1893.  During this early period of his career, Valtat absorbed the chief tenets of Impressionism, van Gogh and Pointillism.  A defining shift in his approach occurred after a collaboration with Toulouse-Lautrec and Albert André in 1895, when Valtat came into contact with the painters of the Nabis group, including Aristide Maillol, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, and Edouard Vuillard.  Influenced by the principles of this group, he abandoned his divisionist technique, with which he painted in dots and dabs of color that, when viewed from a distance, would create a visual mix, and he began to paint in more broad swathes of color.  At this time, he also abandoned the use of local, or actual, color and adopted the free use of color to achieve more forceful expression.  Although he would favor the use of pure color until the end of his life, he still remained largely independent of the Nabis group, or any other group, preferring maintain contact with artists whose approaches varied greatly and to pursue an independent approach.  In 1894 and early 1895 Valtat spent time with Aristide Maillol in Banyuls and Collioure.  He visited Auguste Renoir several times between 1900 and 1905 at Magagnosc, near Grasse; their portraits of each other included a wood engraving of Renoir and the collaborated on a bust of Cezanne.  Valtat also visited Signac at St. Tropez in 1903 and 1904 and recorded North African street life in several oil sketches.  In addition to exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendents, he also participated in La Libré Esthetique in Brussels in 1900 and the groundbreaking Salon d’Automne of 1903.  Among the reproductions in Louis Vauxcelle’s review of the Salon d’Automne of 1905, in which the term “Fauve” was first used, was a loosely brushed marine scene by Valtat.  Valtat adopted elements from many of these contacts and trends, establishing the principles of expressive color, thick paint application, flattened space and suppression of the figure which he followed throughout the remainder of his career.  All of these tendencies are readily apparent in In the Garden, Versailles.  In this work, the artist presents the viewer with a flourishing patio garden.  Filling the right side of the canvas and consuming almost two-thirds of the composition is a group of potted plants.  Painted in tones of emerald green highlighted with bright green and yellow where hot sunlight bakes the leaves, these plants are the focus of the painting.  In the immediate foreground stands a terra-cotta pot with a tall plant with large, hot red blooms, which, painted in a thick impasto, glow brazenly against the green.  Behind it, three more terra-cotta pots with smaller, leafy plants surround a large, glazed green vase containing a thick bush.  Behind this arrangement, at the left of the composition, a woman dressed in black holding a white parasol, quite possibly a family member, descends a staircase.  The vibrant sunlight reflects from the garden onto her figure, turning the interior of the parasol to chartreuse and leaving a green cast on her dress.  Her form is vaguely sketched in long strokes of color, and, rather than serving as the focus of the picture, she simply eases the transition from the lush plants in the foreground to the sun bleached shutters and façade at the top of the steps.  Valtat’s use of color provides distinction between the cool of the garden and the hot sun on the house and helps to organize the composition:  the lower right of the composition is primarily rich, deep tones of green and gold.  The palette transitions gradually to brighter greens and hot-hued flowers across the center, finally shifting to yellows and bleached greens upon the building.  In effect, it is primarily Valtat’s mastery of color that turns the garden into a cool respite from the hot summer sun.  In addition, this use of patches of color to denote space negates the traditional use of perspective and a horizon line and heightens the flat, decorative surface effect of the work: the two-dimensional result recalls the work of the Nabis painters Bonnard and Vuillard. Valtat’s family moved to Versailles in 1880, when he was eleven years old.  He often painted in the gardens of Versailles: one such scene is housed in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.