Emile Othon Friesz (Le Havre 1879-1949 Paris) Port normand, c. 1900, signed, dated and dedicated "a Madame Senin en affectueux homage", oil on canvas, 71 x 91 cm, framed This work is accompanied by a certificate issued by Robert Martin Provenance: Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Paris (label on the stretcher) Sale Briest, Paris, 21 June 1984 Sale Maître Blache, Versailles, December 1984 Private collection, Paris Sale Christian de Quay – Drouot Montaigne, Paris, 10 March 1994, lot 180 (label on the stretcher, titled as “Voiliers dans le port de Saint-Malo” in the auction catalogue) European private collection (acquired from the above) Literature: Robert Martin, Odile Aittouarès, Emile Othon Friesz. L’oeuvre peint I, Edition Aittouarès , Paris 1995, p. 51, no. 2, with ill. b/w “We were always intoxicated with colour, with words that speak of colour, and with the sun that makes colours live’. André Derain During the winter months of 1904–1905, Derain and Vlaminck shared an atelier and together they painted the surrounding countryside, inspired by the location’s natural beauty. Describing their early days working together, Vlaminck has written: ‘Each of us set up his easel, Derain facing Chatou, with the bridge and steeple in front of him, myself to one side, attracted by the poplars. Naturally I finished first. I walked over to Derain holding my canvas against my legs so that he couldn’t see it. I looked at his picture. Solid, skillful, powerful, already a Derain. ‘What about yours?’ he said. I spun my canvas around. Derain looked at it in silence for a minute, nodded his head, and declared, ‘Very fine.’ That was the starting point of all Fauvism’. Vlaminck quoted in, Judi Freeman, The Fauve Landscape exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1990, p. 15.