French neocubist school. Trio. Oil/paper.

Trio, circa 1960. Oil on paper, unsigned. 24 X 30 cm. Framed. Very good condition. A trio featuring a tambourine, trumpet, and what resembles a guitar or stylised lute. This is a popular theme from the School of Paris during the 1920s-1940s - musicians, harlequins, dancers. • Faceless figures, elongated necks, bodies in cut-out flat shapes. • Construction in horizontal bands that overlap the figures. • Palette: ochres, muted blues, greens, violet-pinks, blacks - very characteristic of late synthetic cubism. • Background in concentric arcs that structure the composition. One immediately thinks of the lineage of Picasso - Fernand Léger - André Lhote. More specifically, this is very close to the workshop work of Lhote's students, Mainie Jallet, or second-generation cubist painters active in Montparnasse during the 1930s.