John Klein talks about Van Dongen Museu Picasso, Barcelona. 02.07.09

From Demimonde to Beau Monde: The Arc of Van Dongen's Portraiture

Kees Van Dongen exhibition www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/en/exhibitions/kees-van-dongen.html

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From now until the end of September visitors to the Museum will have the rare opportunity to enjoy almost 80 works by Kees van Dongen, but not every day will they have the exceptional privilege of touring the exhibition in the company of an expert on modern and contemporary art such as John Klein, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Washington University (St. Louis, MO, USA). At the invitation of the Museu Picasso, committed as we are to generating and sharing knowledge, Professor Klein devoted over an hour to revealing little-known facets of Van Dongen’s portraits and a series of fascinating parallels between this great Fauve painter and Picasso. When we look at Van Dongen’s work we find a lot of correspondences with Picasso, but Klein invites us to see these similarities not as a direct borrowing: ‘Rather than one influencing the other, what we have here is a sharing of common interests and conditions; both artists were foreigners living in Paris, and that led them to feel in very similar ways.’ What Picasso and Van Dongen had in common was Paris, the Bateau-Lavoir, and a shared source of inspiration and a model: Fernande Olivier. After this period, Picasso took a major step forward to create—in conjunction with Braque—Cubism. Picasso’s name became synonymous with modern art, with international acclaim and abundance as he gained an ever greater reputation among the critics. Van Dongen, in contrast, was less adaptable than Picasso; his art pursued a more linear course, and as a result he attracted far less attention. Have you ever wondered why the real-life model does not look like their painted portrait? This, precisely, is one of the many interesting questions that were addressed in his talk. He gave the example of the art collector and dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who was painted by both Picasso and Van Dongen, and then asked a question: which of the two portraits is more like the subject?

A photograph of Kahnweiler, and the portraits of him by Van Dongen (centre) and Picasso (right). Clearly, neither picture is a close likeness. It was not the intention of either of these artists to reproduce a face shape, but rather to represent the relationship between the artist and the model. They are portraits that embody the subjectivity and personality of both the artist and the sitter. Van Dongen distorts the image and Picasso breaks it into pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. Both of these outcomes were radical; Kahnweiler was a key supporter of the vision of each artist. In other words, Professor Klein explained, a portrait is a transaction between painter and sitter, and it is this deeply subjective vision that makes the resulting picture so different from its starting point. Another of the key points had to do with Professor Klein’s reading of the Van Dongen

John Klein talks about Van Dongen Museu Picasso, Barcelona. 02.07.09

From Demimonde to Beau Monde: The Arc of Van Dongen's Portraiture

Kees Van Dongen exhibition www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/en/exhibitions/kees-van-dongen.html

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self-portrait, chosen as the image with which to publicize the exhibition. Klein considers that part of this picture, so uncompromising in its line and colour, may have been painted at a later time than had been thought until now. Van Dongen added the layer of intense red and the thick brushstrokes at a later date, after he had made his name as a transgressor, a wild Fauve. According to Klein, it was then that he transformed his self-portrait in order to present it — and himself — to society with the raw force that he wanted to convey and for which he wanted to be remembered, with the bold color red as a kind of signature. At that time, portrait painting was a way of gaining recognition and a place in fashionable society, and Van Dongen’s triumphant success in Paris in the nineteen twenties owed a great deal to his portraits of many of the most celebrated figures of the day; but what was his secret?

To explain that success, Professor Klein quotes Van Dongen himself: ‘The rule is to make the women tall and slender. Exaggerate the jewellery and you will make them happy.’ And this is also the key to Van Dongen’s achievement as an artist: highlighting the artificial and shunning natural expressions. Of course, the words ‘art’ and ‘artifice’ come from the same root, and Klein reminded us that art is essentially artifice, a lie.

This perception is one that Picasso and Van Dongen shared, and one that is central to Post-modern art today.