Portrait of Kees van Dongen

The portrait of the Dutch Fauvist Kees van Dongen was created in 1924. Five years later, Gazeta Polska published a photograph from the session to accompany Roman Brandstaetter’s article “U Leopolda Gottlieba” (At Leopold Gottlieb’s, 24 December 1929, no. 56). Although Gottlieb’s work took some inspiration from Fauvism still before WWI (discernible, for example, in The Port of Audierne), it was mostly limited to the use of pure patches and flat composition. The painter was, however, not interested in dissonant combinations of saturated colours found in the works of Matisse, Vlaminck or Van Dongen in the early 20th century.

Artur Tanikowski [in:] Leopold Gottlieb (exhibition catalogue), Wejman Gallery, Warszawa 2018, pp. 26-27.