Vaclav RADIMSKY (1867-1946) - Lot 193

Vaclav RADIMSKY (1867-1946) Reeds, rushes and water lilies by the Seine near Giverny, circa 1898-1902 Oil on canvas (original) signed lower right A few cracks in the upper part, a tiny lack of pictorial material in the lower right corner 65 x 92 cm Provenance : private collection (Eure) Expert : Expertises Tellier, Paris / Marc-Henri TELLIER, member of the CEFA Václav Radimský was born on October 6th 1867 in Kolín (Austro-Hungarian Empire) and died on January 31st 1946 in Pašinka (Czechoslovakia). He came from a family of lawyers from Kolín, who later became landowners in Pašinka. After high school, he went to Vienna to study with Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels, and then to Munich with Eduard Schleich. In 1890, Radimský went to Paris where he was welcomed by the Czech painter Zdenka Braunerová who introduced him to many young French artists. He discovered Barbizon and met the impressionist painters, notably Cezanne and Monet, and was quickly recognised in France. In 1893 he exhibited at the 33rd Municipal Fine Arts Exhibition in Rouen with two paintings entitled Blés mûrissants and Blés mûrs, under numbers 684 and 685. The painter was living at that time in Rosny-sur-Seine. In 1894, Cezanne, with whom Radimsky shared a studio in Paris, recommended him to Monet. He then joined the group of painters who met at the Hotel Baudy in Giverny near the Master's house. Hundreds of artists frequented the commune, hoping to meet him and perhaps learn from him. As a pianist, Radimsky was one of the hosts of the evenings with the artists present. It was there that he met his future wife, Louise Fromont, a Vernonnaise, a model for the Giverny painters, whom he married in 1907, with whom he had an only daughter who died of scarlet fever a few months after her birth. In 1895, he won a gold medal at the Rouen Salon. He exhibited several paintings at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1893, 1895, 1897, 1898, 1899 and 1900 and was awarded a bronze medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition that year. After Rosny-sur-Seine, Radimský lived in Paris at 62 boulevard de Clichy, then in Giverny from 1898. In 1899, he held his first exhibition in Prague, with 88 paintings. Our painting was executed in the vicinity of Giverny, around 1898-1902. In the foreground, the painter depicts a panicle of reeds and rushes lying slightly down, accompanied by the water lilies that Monet loved. In the background we see the Seine with reflections on the water, thus creating a mirror effect; and in the background houses on the banks of the river dominated by hills. The sky is reduced to a quarter of the height of the canvas. The palette consists of the following colours: white, green, yellow, ochre, grey, blue, pink and violet. As with the impressionists, Radimský captures the atmospheric conditions, but his touch is more swirling than that of his French colleagues. Nature is unchanging and no human presence is detectable. Several of the artist's works reproduced in Nadèžda Blažíčková-Horová's book can be compared to our painting, which is certainly one of his masterpieces. Radimský regularly visited his family and exhibited paintings in Bohemia. Apart from Paris and Prague, he showed his works in London, Vienna and Warsaw. Radimský acquires an old mill called "La Bergamotte" in the hamlet of Goulet, near Giverny. He set up his house and studio there on the Seine. Like his friend Monet, he also had a "floating studio" built so that he could paint on the river, which he particularly liked. Before 1914, he founded, with one of his brothers, a food canning factory called Bohemia. After the outbreak of the First World War, he was arrested as a citizen of an enemy country and imprisoned, but was released thanks to the intervention of influential friends, including Georges Clemenceau, a politician and collector of Impressionists, who owned one of his works. Disillusioned by this attitude, Radimský left France in 1918 with his partner and returned to Bohemia, to Kolín, to paint the Elbe Valley for the rest of his life.