Global InformationPortrait of an Army Doctor information
| Portrait of an Army Doctor | |
|---|---|
| French: Portrait d'un médecin militaire | |
 | |
| Artist | Albert Gleizes |
| Year | 1914–15 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 119.8 cm × 95.1 cm (47.25 in × 37.44 in) |
| Location | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York |
Portrait of an Army Doctor (in French Portrait d'un médecin militaire) is an oil-on-canvas painting created during 1914–15 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. Painted at the fortress city of Toul (Lorraine) while Gleizes served in the military during the First World War, the painting's abstract circular rhythms and intersecting aslant planes announce the beginning of the second synthetic phase of Cubism.[1][2][3] The work represents Gleizes's commanding officer, Major Mayer-Simon Lambert (1870–1943), the regimental surgeon in charge of the military hospital at Toul. At least eight preparatory sketches, gouaches and watercolors of the work have survived, though Portrait of an Army Doctor is one of Gleizes's only major oil paintings of the period.[4]
As other wartime works by Gleizes, Portrait of an Army Doctor represents a break from the first phase of Cubism. These wartime works mark "the beginning of an attempt to preserve specific and individual visual characteristics while experimenting with a radically different compositional treatment in which broad planes, angled from the perimeter, meet circles." (Robbins, 1964)[2] Rather than based on the analysis of volumetric objects, the artist strove toward synthesis; something that originated in unity.[5]
Portrait of an Army Doctor—earlier forming part of the collection of art dealer Léonce Rosenberg[6]—was purchased by Solomon R. Guggenheim at an important Gleizes exhibition at René Gimpel Galerie in New York City, December 1936 to January 1937 (no. 8).[5] The work forms part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection.[7] It was gifted to the museum by Solomon Guggenheim in 1937 (the year of the formation of the foundation). The painting is in the permanent collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.[1]
- ^ a b J. Fiona Ragheb, Albert Gleizes, Portrait of an Army Doctor, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Collection Online
- ^ a b Daniel Robbins, 1964, Albert Gleizes 1881 - 1953, A Retrospective Exhibition, Published by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, in collaboration with Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund.
- ^ Daniel Robbins, Albert Gleizes, Grove Art Online, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, Oxford University Press, 2009
- ^ Peter Brooke, Albert Gleizes, Chronology of his life, 1915, from Le Cubisme en majesté, Albert Gleizes, exhibition catalogue, Musée Picasso, Barcelona; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, 2001
- ^ a b Peter Brooke, Albert Gleizes: For and Against the Twentieth Century, Yale University Press, 2001, ISBN 0300089643
- ^ Amédée Ozenfant, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), La peinture moderne, Éditions G. Crès et Cie, 1925
- ^ Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection Archived 2015-02-03 at the Wayback Machine