Composition

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Composition

Artist Jacques Villon (French, 1875-1963)

Date1927

Dimensions19 3/8 x 13 3/8 in. (49.5 x 34 cm)

Mediumcolor aquatint and roulette

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineWinthrop H. Perry Fund

Object number

1954.30

Not on View

Label TextIn 1911 Jacques Villon’s brother, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, sculpted a bust of the French poet Charles Baudelaire. After Duchamp-Villon’s early death in 1918, JacquesVillon began using variations of Baudelaire as a figure of study in his own work. It was a way for him to carry on Duchamp-Villon’s artistic legacy. In his studies of Baudelaire, Villon abstracted planar elements, then stacked and expanded them into space. Villon later wrote: “I remember that about 1911, we used to say ... that if Baudelaire’s bust were to explode, it would do so along certain lines of force.” In Composition, which was based on his 1921 painting entitled Figure, Villon arrived at an abstract representation of his brother’s sculpture, taking cues from the developing Cubist language.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, European Expressionist and Cubist Works on Paper: 1900-1930, December 2, 2011-March 11, 2012 (University of Toledo Student Exhibition).