Auction announcements
03th Dec 2014Lot 72: The work will be included in the Marcel Dyf catalogue raisonné which is currently under preparation. The work is titled “Claudine à la lecture”, 1960. The archive number is 5000.

Oil on canvas
France, after 1954
Marcel Dyf (1899-1985) – French painter of Impressionism
Signed lower right ‘Dyf’
Dimensions: 55 x 46 cm
Good condition
Provenance: Private collection, Switzerland
Claudine, the artist’s wife reading the newspaper; the auction record for a painting of the artist depicting a reading girl is currently placed at more than €18,000
Object is regular taxed. 19% VAT is added to the purchase price for deliveries within the EU.

The painting shows Claudine, the artist’s wife reading the newspaper. In 1954, Marcel Dyf married Claudine in Cannes at the age of 55 when she was only 19. Claudine is one of the main subjects as the reading girl in his work. It was the artist’s desire to express the beauty and the charisma of the depicted. Thereby, his interest in his female portraits lies mainly in the transparency of the skin, the shine of the hair, the expression of the eyes.

The painting is signed lower right ‘Dyf’. The painting is in an optically overall good condition. Craquelé is partly visible. Lower right at the wicker chair are some small color chips and also a small spot in the newspaper. The image measures 55 x 46 cm and the overall dimensions, including the frame, are 76.5 x 67.5 cm.



Marcel Dyf (1899-1985)

Marcel Dyf aborted his job as an engineer to become an artist. In 1922, he went to Arles to train as a painter, where he also opened his own studio. He painted frescoes at the city halls of Saint-Martin-de-Crau and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, as well as at the Museon Arlaten in Arles. He created windows for the Église Saint-Louis in Marseille. He moved into the former studio of Maximilien Luce and went to the Académie Julian in 1935. He returned to Arles because of the German invasion in 1940 and joined the French Résistance. After the Second World War he spent the winters in Paris and the summers in Southern France. His works were exhibited and sold by Petrides Gallery, the Salon d’Automne, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Artistes Francais in Paris, as well as in galleries in Cannes, Nice, Marseilles and Strasbourg. Overseas, he exhibited at Frost & Reed Gallery in London. (tmi)

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