18. Jacques VILLON (1875-1963) Mougins, 1944 Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. 73 x 100 cm. Provenance : - Pierre and Jeannine Consten Collection. - Galerie Louis Carré, 10 avenue de Messine, Paris 8e (label on the back). Exhibitions : - New York, "Selected paintings from its permanent Collection of Louis Carré Gallery", 1951, n°2 -New York, "Duchamp Frère et Soeurs, OEuvres d'Art", Rose Fried Gallery, 25 February-March 1952, n°2 - Vienna, "Léger, Gromaire, Villon, Kupka", Galerie Würthle, May-June 1952, n°1 - Oslo, " Jacques Villon ", Künstnernes Hus, 14 November 1959- 3 January 1960, n°36 - Bergen, " Jacques Villon, Malerie ", Bergens Kunstforenings, January 15 - February 7 1960, n°32 - Stockholm, " Jacques Villon, Malerie och Grafik, 1902-1959 ", Moderna Museet, March 1960, n°41 - Musée Galliera Paris, " Dix ans de Biennale de Menton, 1960 ", n° 10 of the catalog (label on the back). - Galerie Charpentier (76 rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, Paris), label on the back. Jacques Villon, painter, is the eldest of the most insolent brotherhood of artists of the 20th century: Raymond Duchamp Villon (1876-1918), the sculptor of the famous Cheval majeur ; Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) the radical avant-gardist of the Ready-Made and finally the painter Suzanne Duchamp (1889-1963). He belongs to the first generation of the cubist painters and is in 1912, one of the founders of the Golden Section or Group of Puteaux with Gleizes, Metzinger, Léger, La Fresnaye that he gathers -among others- in in his studio in Puteaux. Villon exhibited at the Armory Show in 1913 and had his first success in the success in the United States. Jacques Villon will be faithful all his life to Cézanne's cubism and to the decomposition/ recomposition by plans. He fringed with abstract geometry around 1920. The singularity of Villon is a deep reflection on the emotional and constructive possibilities of constructive possibilities of the color and their use according to the chromatic circle: he had immersed in the Twenties in the scientific treaties on the color (Theory of the colors, by Ogden Nicholas Rood and Auguste Rosenstielh, 1881). His palette then changed completely, becoming very luminous and limited to the colors of the prism. The year 1944 was particularly auspicious for Villon, who had his first exhibition at the Carré Gallery, this year exhibition at the Carré gallery, the latter now dealing exclusively with his his work. Mougins, 1944 illustrates the painter's interest in landscapes, which he had already begun Normandy in 1940, after the occupation of Paris. In a synthetic reconstruction by colored planes (and in application of the theory of the spatial value of colors), Villon assembles the Provencal village of Mougins, the dense vegetation of olive trees and the vegetal reflections in the pond of Fontmerle. As a focal point, emerges from the yellow sky the square bell tower of the Notre-Dame de Vie chapel (which will be next to the future mas of Pablo and Jacqueline Picasso, their last residence). The Galerie Louis Carré holds an oil on canvas Notre-Dame de vie, 1944. Villon had already been interested in this same motif in two etchings in 1934 -The laundry between Cannes and Mougins and The plain between Cannes and Mougins. Exhibitions : - New York, "Selected paintings from its permanent Collection of Louis Carré Gallery", 1951, n°2 - New York, "Duchamp Brother and Sisters, Works of Art", Rose Fried Gallery, February 25-March 1952, n°2 - Vienna, "Léger, Gromaire, Villon, Kupka", Galerie Würthle, May-June 1952, n°1 - Oslo, " Jacques Villon ", Künstnernes Hus, 14 November 1959- 3 January 1960, n°36 - Bergen, " Jacques Villon, Malerie ", Bergens Kunstforenings, 15 January - 7 February 1960, n°32 - Stockholm, " Jacques Villon, Malerie och Grafik, 1902-1959 ", Moderna Museet, March 1960, n°41