Louis Marcoussis

Catalogue entry

N05989 Pluie (Rain) 1929

Inscribed 'Marcoussis' t.r.
Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 (61 x 45.5)
Purchased from Roland, Browse and Delbanco (Knapping Fund) 1951
Prov: With Galerie d'Art du Faubourg, Paris (purchased from Mme Alice Halicka, the artist's widow); with Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London
Exh: Notable Purchases and Paintings by Marcoussis, Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, February 1951 (32)
Lit: Jean Lafranchis, Marcoussis: sa Vie, son Oeuvre (Paris 1961), No. P.169, pp.124-5, 132, 136, 266, repr. p.266 as 'Pluie' 1929

Marcoussis spent the summer of 1929 at Saint-Servan near Saint-Malo and began at this time to introduce a Breton loaf or loaves into a number of his still lifes. In this picture, a loaf and a wine-glass are on a table with a cloth in front of a window, through which one sees a glimpse of a stormy sky with rain falling. It is particularly similar in theme and style to a smaller picture 'The Storm', now in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, which is signed and dated 1929 (Lafranchis No. P.170). 'The Storm' includes most of the same elements, including a window with rain falling, but differently arranged. The combination of a still-life subject with a glimpse through a window or a doorway is characteristic of his work at this period.

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, p.485, reproduced p.485

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