Michalis Economou

(Greek, 1888-1933)

Mas à la campagne

Footnotes

Nous remercions Afroditi Kouria pour son aide dans l'authentification ce lot.
We are grateful to Afroditi Kouria for her assistance in authenticating this lot.

An outstanding recent discovery and an important addition to the artist's oeuvre, this soulful rendition of nature reveals Economou's penchant for painting the quiet corners of the landscape, while displaying his ability to transform ordinary subjects into visions of humble monumentality.

In a peaceful olive orchard, the aged trees shaped by time and the elements offer a delightful variety to the artist's observing eye. The bark of the tree trunks is composed of countless quick touches of thick impasto to suggest rough texture, while the varied angles of the branches create a vivid surface pattern echoing van Gogh's celebrated olive groves. Trunks and branches are used as a means of flattening the pictorial space and juxtaposing foreground and background in the vein of similar works by the Nabis. At the same time, the triangle in the centre-right opens out the composition to reveal the glowing curvilinear forms of an evocative adobe dwelling—the artist's signature subject—while large areas of cast shadows animate the ground, endowing the picture with a vibrating pulse and poetic feel.

In 1927, D. Kokkinos noted that Economou's paintings were true works of poetry but so masterfully rendered that their significance as paintings prevailed. As noted by art historian A. Kouria, who prepared the painter's monograph, art critics of the time urged collectors to hasten and purchase these works. In light of the critical and popular acclaim his two one-man shows (1926 and 1927) met with, it's no wonder that his works adorned the collections of such major early 20th century Greek collectors as A. Benakis, C. Loulis, and G. Stringos.<sup>1

1</sup> See A. Kouria, Michalis Economou [in Greek], Adam editions, Athens 2001, p. 125