Stock Ref D1858
A Cubist collage by ALBERT HUYOT (Paris, 1872-1968)
France, 1933
85.5 cm high by 66.5 cm wide
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The son and grandson of artists, Albert Huyot was a pupil of Diogène Maillart and Gustave Moreau. His first paintings were done in a generic Post-Impressionist manner indebted to the example of the Nabis, but he soon became influenced by Cubism.
He exhibited regularly at the Salon des Indépendants, the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Tuileries, and also participated in the Grande Exposition in Brussels in 1910; in the same year he also spent some time in Russia. Huyot was a friend of Henri Matisse, and around 1912 his work reveals the influence of Fauvism; André Derain was another particular influence. After 1920, however, Huyot seems to have abandoned the rigour of his earlier work in favour of landscape painting. An exhibition of his work was held at the Galerie Berthe Weill in Paris in 1926.
In our piece ‘Collage 1933’ there are several texts, the longest of which is written in Czech and could be a poem or a text about some abstract topics; words with a certain translation include: midnights, flat lands, awakening, improvising, hoarfrost, solemn, panoply, greetings, blue, petroleum, tornado, holy, sea, friendly, boat, tremendous, rail, majesty, marble, bracing, seawall.
The piece of writing above the musical score is again Czech, an approximate translation:
‘I went to the gate, scraping by the weir
On the fireclay (…)
Why are you going inside? After all, all (…) sleep.
Where are the people? Whatchamacallit? ‘
There are two sentences in the lower half of the collage, to the right, the first one translate from the polish as ‘not sleeping tonight (or today)’; the original language and meaning of the second is not clear.
The artist is most probably quoting some modern East European poets, including literature and music (the latter likely modern too) in his collage as this was common in cubists works.