Paule Vezelay

(British, 1892-1984)

Composition Objets et Soleil 51.5 x 41 cm. (20 1/4 x 16 1/8 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
With Michael Parkin Fine Art, London, 1988, where acquired by
Mary Hobart, London

Exhibited
London, Michael Parkin Fine Art, Paule Vézelay 1892-1984: Early Work 1909-1939, 20 April-27 May 1988, cat.no.23

Born Marjorie Watson-Williams in Bristol, Vézelay studied at the Slade and also London School of Art before a formative trip to Paris in 1920 changed her entire creative outlook. Initially working in an Impressionistic style she swiftly moved towards a bolder, more abstract approach at a time when abstraction was deeply unpopular in Britain and even Hepworth and Nicholson were still working in a figurative style. She returned to France and, settling there in 1926, also changed her name to identify further with the Parisian school.

Whilst there, Vézelay met and fell in love with the Surrealist painter André Masson, living with him from 1929-1933, during which time the present work (complete with title en francais) was painted. Composition Objets et Soleil contains calligraphic lines that echo those typical of Masson, swirling through the background of this celestial space. These can also be found in her seminal Curves and Circles dating from the same year and housed in the Tate Collection. The sun of the title is intersected by a staircase to the right whilst other abstract and bio-morphic forms taper and reach towards a cloudy sky with lone star above. The overall impression being of a wholly unnatural, natural world.

The Tate gave Paule Vézelay a retrospective exhibition in 1983 and she was also included in the Pallant House Radical Women exhibition in 2020, thus reinforcing what Paul Nash recognised in 1936 – that she was an 'unmistakably genuine talent' (ex.cat., Paule Vézelay: Paintings and Sculptures, Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd. (The Lefevre Galleries), London, 1936).