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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, FLORIDA
Lot 37
EMILIANO DI CAVALCANTI(1897-1976)Pescador
17 November 2020, 17:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$75,312.50 inc. premium
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EMILIANO DI CAVALCANTI (1897-1976)
Pescador
signed 'E di Cavalcanti.' (lower right)
oil on canvas
12 7/8 x 16 in (32.7 x 41.3 cm)
Painted circa 1951
signed 'E di Cavalcanti.' (lower right)
oil on canvas
12 7/8 x 16 in (32.7 x 41.3 cm)
Painted circa 1951
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Elisabeth Di Cavalcanti Veiga.
Provenance
Josette Puthod, Rio de Janeiro (gifted from the artist circa 1950-1951).
Thence by descent to the present owner in 2015.
After experiencing the modernist movement in Europe, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti returned to his native Rio di Janeiro with a strong urge of nationalistic pride. Although clearly influenced by the great French masters, Cavalcanti's unsurpassed Brazilian style permeates throughout his oeuvre. In Pescador, Cavalcanti's exuberant bursts of color within the sky and sea, as well as his bold use of line, captures the passionate spirit of his native Rio di Janeiro. The scene is familiar to the artist's work from the 1950s - that of a fisherman relaxing with his daily catch, his routine uninterrupted by the modernist machine age touching Europe.
Like Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso, Cavalcanti was interested in the fracturing of objects into geometric shapes while maintaining the illusion of three-dimensionality. This Cubist vocabulary reveals itself in the present lot, where Cavalcanti's emphasis on the flat surface, use of strong line, and creation of cylindrical forms, maintains a complete adherence to figural representation and seascape.
In 1949 at the young age of 19, Josette Puthold moved from Switzerland to Rio de Janeiro to work at Standard Propaganda. While there, Puthod was almost entirely in charge of the Helena Rubenstein and Gourielli accounts for the agency. It was working for Rubenstein that she met Cavalcanti, who asked her to pose for him. A friendship blossomed between the two, and Puthold posed for him several times before leaving Brazil for Miami in 1951. A talented artist herself, Puthold wished to buy one of his artworks on a payment plan. Instead, Cavalcanti, driven by his usual generosity, gifted her Pescador as a parting gift. On the back of the stretcher of the present work, the inscription Casa Minerva, Rua 7 de Settembro indicates a daily spot the artist visited, and possibly the site at which Cavalcanti may have parted with the piece.