André Auclair, The 3 Musicians (version with pianist), circa 1930

ANDRÉ AUCLAIR (Paris 1893 - Saint-Thomé 1976) The Three Musicians (Pianist Version) Circa 1930. Gouache on paper. 21.5 x 26.5 cm (framed: 35 x 45.5 cm) Inscribed on the back: André Auclair (1893-1971) / The Three Musicians. Framed under glass. André Auclair, born in Paris in 1893, studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs and the École des Beaux-Arts. Like so many great artists, he pursued a dual career as a painter and as a designer for the decorative arts. Auclair was a painter, sculptor, ceramicist, engraver, tapestry designer (his father had been a weaver at the Gobelins Manufactory), and stained-glass designer. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a member of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, and he regularly exhibited his paintings and drawings at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon des Tuileries. He also taught painting at the École de Montparnasse. This exquisitely subtle composition of a trio of classical musicians—a cellist, a violinist, and a pianist—executed in black line drawing and organic blocks of color in gouache, is an important work of Cubism dating from the heart of the Cubist period. It should not be confused with late Cubist works from the 1940s to the 1960s, when many artists of average talent jumped on the bandwagon. Auclair, like all the other original Cubists, did not become confined to the style and evolved quite rapidly. For these musicians, Auclair was also inspired by the illumination of medieval manuscripts, and this fusion of Cubism and medievalism (for a subject of modern chamber music) is typical of Auclair's visual and graphic intelligence. This is probably the original model for a larger work executed in oil.