“Le Jockey”

Medium	Oil on board
Signed	Signed lower left
Size	16.00" × 11.00" (40.6cm × 27.9cm)
Framed Size	22.00" × 17.00" (55.9cm × 43.2cm)
Dated	c. 1950
Condition	Very good condition
Provenance	Private collection - France

Summary

The racecourse gave Gen Paul (1895–1975) something the streets of Montmartre could not quite provide — pure speed. The jockey in full silks, crouched low over the neck of a horse at full gallop, is a subject that demands exactly the kind of painting he did best: gestural, distorted, charged with kinetic energy, the figure barely contained by the canvas edge. His handling of the subject is unmistakable. The brushstrokes follow the direction of movement rather than the contours of the figure — a technique that gives his racing scenes their particular sense of physical force. The colours of the silks are applied with the boldness of a Fauvist but organised with a compositional intelligence that Fauvism rarely achieved at this pitch of excitement. Some art historians have described Gen Paul as the first action painter, a precursor to the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s, and in a canvas like this one can see exactly why — the mark-making is so immediate, so committed, that the subject and the handling become inseparable. The horse racing subjects belong primarily to his great period of the mid-1920s, when his fully expressive Expressionist style was at its most uncompromising. These are among the most sought-after works in his entire output — paintings that demonstrate the full range of a painter who could move between the gaslit pleasures of Montmartre and the speed and pageantry of Longchamp with complete authority. Gen Paul was born on the Rue Lepic in Montmartre in 1895 and lost his right leg to a First World War wound, returning to painting during his convalescence. Self-taught, he became one of the dominant figures of the École de Paris, exhibiting alongside Picasso, Braque and Soutine. He was awarded the Légion d'Honneur in 1934. On his death in 1975 he was described by the critic Jean-Paul Crespelle as the last great painter of Montmartre.

£7,950.00

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