André Dunoyer de Segonzac

Still Life with a Cabbage

1919–20

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2020

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Not on display

Artist: André Dunoyer de Segonzac 1884–1974
Original title: Nature morte au chou
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 730 × 921 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Sir Michael Sadler 1941
Reference: N05415

Display caption

In the years before the First World War Dunoyer de Segonzac was seen as a broadly modern artist. His works were shown alongside those of Cubist artists in Paris. Although his works echoed Van Gogh in their handling of paint and Cézanne in their use of flat planes, Dunoyer de Segonzac was always a highly individual artist, one who escaped neat categorisation. This simple still life, with its crumpled white tablecloth and tipped-up perspective, distantly recalls the work of Cézanne. But the dark, earthy tones, and the use of the palette knife to create contrasting smooth and moulded areas of paint, convey Dunoyer de Segonzac's attempt to combine aspects of modernist painting with an earthy realism.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

André Dunoyer de Segonzac 1884-1974

N05415 Nature Morte au Chou (Still Life with a Cabbage) 1919-20

Not inscribed
Oil on canvas, 28 3/4 x 36 (73 x 92)
Presented by Sir Michael Sadler through the NACF 1941
Prov: With Independent Gallery, London (purchased from the artist); Lord Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, Underley; with Independent Gallery, London; Sir Michael Sadler, Oxford
Exh: Oeuvres Nouvelles, Galerie Druet, Paris, January 1920 (34, repr.); Salon des Indépendants, Paris, January-February 1920 (1452); Modern French Paintings and Drawings, Independent Gallery, London, May 1920 (9); The CAS: Loan Exhibition of Modern Foreign Painting, Colnaghi's Galleries, London, June-July 1924 (56); Opening Exhibition of the Modern Foreign Gallery, Tate Gallery, June-October 1926 (works not numbered); Dunoyer de Segonzac, Independent Gallery, London, June 1927 (4); Masterpieces from the Collections of Yorkshire and Durham, Leeds City Art Gallery, July 1936 (43); Dunoyer de Segonzac, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, May-July 1960 (10, repr.), incorrectly dated 1913
Lit: Paul Jamot, Dunoyer de Segonzac (Paris 1929), pp.228, 231, repr. p.93; Paul Jamot, Dunoyer de Segonzac (Paris 1941), p.180
Repr: Burlington Magazine, XXXVI, 1920, p.314; Claude Roger-Marx, Dunoyer de Segonzac (Geneva 1951), pl.71

Though dated 1919 in L'Amour de l'Art, 1921, p.143, the usual date given for this work is 1920. However, as the Galerie Druet exhibition opened on 19 January 1920, and it was reproduced in the catalogue, most if not all of the painting was probably done the previous year.

Dunoyer de Segonzac's early still-life paintings tend to have a 'kitchen table' character.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.196-7, reproduced p.196