Circuit Railway at Grenelle

Catalogue entry

Antoine Villard 1867-1934

N03830 Chemin de Fer de Ceinture à Grenelle (Circuit Railway at Grenelle) 1922

Inscribed 'A. Villard | 1922.' b.r. and 'A. Villard.' on stretcher
Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 28 3/4 (92 x 73)
Presented by Miss J.M.A. Workman 1923
Prov: Purchased by Miss J.M.A. Workman from a dealer in the Rue Royale, Paris (Druet?), 1923
Exh: French Paintings and Drawings, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, February-April 1932 (33); French Art, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, April-June 1932 (25); RSA, Edinburgh, April-September 1934 (165)
Lit: Charles Fegdal, Ateliers d'Artistes (Paris 1925), p.182; Georges Turpin, Dix-huit Peintres Indépendants (Paris 1931), pp.200-1; Edouard-Joseph, Dictionnaire Biographique des Artistes Contemporains 1910-30 (Paris 1934), Vol.3, pp.390-2; Jacques Guenne, 'Antoine Villard' in L'Art Vivant, No.188, 1934, p.373

Painted in Paris in 1922 and catalogued at one time as 'Tenements'. It depicts a view from Villard's studio at 4 Square Desnouettes, Paris 15e. Villard painted a series of pictures of this motif over a period of years under the title used here, including a number of other paintings which also show the scene under snow. According to Georges Turpin, loc. cit.: 'This is the landscape which Villard painted ten times, twenty times, a hundred times, at all hours, in all moods, at all seasons'.

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.749, reproduced p.749

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