The painting is marked by the sand-laced pigment and curvilinear forms of Braque's later work and presents a seated female artist with palette and brush in hand. Set in the artist's own Varengeville studio on the Normandy coast, it is one of about ten paintings that depicts figures engaging in artistic or musical activities.
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): G. Braque [underlined]/ 36
[Paul Rosenberg, Paris, London and New York, 1936–49; stock no. 3712, purchased from the artist in 1936, for $3,000; sold on June 3, 1949, for $16,000, to Marx]; Samuel and Florene Marx, Chicago (1949–his d. 1964); Florene May Marx, later Mrs. Wolfgang Schoenborn, New York (1964–d. 1995; her bequest to MMA)
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. 1937.
Paris. Paul Rosenberg. "Exposition d'œuvres récentes de Georges Braque," April 3–30, 1937, no. 15 (as "Dans l'atelier").
Arts Club of Chicago. "Georges Braque: Retrospective Exhibition," November 7–27, 1939, no. 57 (as "Femme au chevalet," lent by Rosenberg & Helft, Ltd., London).
Washington. Phillips Memorial Gallery. "Georges Braque: Retrospective Exhibition," December 6, 1939–January 6, 1940, no. 39 (as "Femme au chevalet," lent by Rosenberg & Helft, Ltd., London).
San Francisco Museum of Art. "Georges Braque: Retrospective Exhibition," February 6–March 3, 1940, no catalogue.
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "The School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection," November 2, 1965–January 2, 1966, unnumbered cat. (p. 34; as "Woman at an Easel").
Art Institute of Chicago. "The School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection," February 11–March 27, 1966, unnumbered cat.
City Art Museum of Saint Louis. "The School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection," April 26–June 13, 1966, unnumbered cat.
Mexico City. Museo de Arte Moderno. "The School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection," July 2–August 7, 1966, unnumbered cat.
San Francisco Museum of Art. "The School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection," September 2–October 2, 1966, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Florene M. Schoenborn Bequest: 12 Artists of the School of Paris," February 11–May 4, 1997, extended to August 31, 1997, brochure no. 3.
Marugame Genichiro Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art. "Georges Braque Retrospective," June 6–July 19, 1998, no. 45 (as "Femme au chevalet [Paravent jaune]").
Kagoshima City Museum of Art. "Georges Braque Retrospective," July 24–August 30, 1998, no. 45.
Tokyo. Bunkamura Museum of Art. "Georges Braque Retrospective," September 12–October 25, 1998, no. 45.
Mie Prefectural Art Museum. "Georges Braque Retrospective," November 3–December 13, 1998, no. 45.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Painters in Paris: 1895–1950," March 8–December 31, 2000, extended to January 14, 2001, unnumbered cat. (p. 106).
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Picasso and the School of Paris: Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," September 14–November 24, 2002, no. 62.
Tokyo. Bunkamura Museum of Art. "Picasso and the School of Paris: Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," December 7, 2002–March 9, 2003, no. 62.
New York. Acquavella Galleries. "Georges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism," October 12–November 30, 2011, no. 34 (as "Woman at an Easel [Yellow Screen]").
Stanislas Fumet. Braque. Paris, [1948], fig. 36, as "La Peintresse," 1938.
Maurice Gieure. G. Braque. Paris, 1956, pp. 82,101, pl. 93, calls it "The Woman Painter".
René Ben Sussan in John Russell. G. Braque. London, 1959, p. 125, under no. 53.
Nicole S. Mangin. Catalogue de l'œuvre de Georges Braque. Vol. [5], Peintures 1936–1941. [Paris], 1961, p. 1, ill., as "Femme au chevalet (paravent jaune)".
Lucy R. Lippard inThe School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1965, pp. 34–35, ill. (color), notes that it is "one of a large series begun in 1936 portraying interiors with seated women engaged in artistic pursuits".
James Thrall Soby inThe School of Paris: Paintings from the Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx Collection. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1965, p. 9.
Raymond Cogniat. Georges Braque. New York, 1980, p. 132, fig. 62, as "Woman with an Easel (Yellow Screen)".
Nadine Pouillon with Isabelle Monod-Fontaine. Braque:Œuvres de Georges Braque (1882–1963). Exh. cat., Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou. Paris, 1982, p. 100, under no. 24, fig. 5, call it "La Femme au chevalet (paravent jaune)"; dates the series of women in interiors from 1936–39.
Maureen Mullarkey. "Tuesday at the Met." Hudson Review 40 (Summer 1987), p. 196, calls it "Woman at an Easle".
Karen Wilkin. Georges Braque. New York, 1991, p. 79, fig. 58 (color).
Jean Leymarie. Braque: Les ateliers. Aix-en-Provence, 1995, pp. 72, 97–98, colorpl. 27, calls it "La Femme au chevalet (Paravent jaune)"; discusses it with two other versions of this composition with a female figure symbolizing painting, both also dated 1936: "Femme à la palette" (former collection J. Delubac, Paris; now Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon) and "La Femme au chevalet (Paravent vert)" (former Sara Lee Corporation, Chicago; now Art Institute of Chicago)
.
William S. Lieberman in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 1996–1997." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 55 (Fall 1997), pp. 78–79, ill. (color), identifies the setting as Braque's studio in Varengeville, near Dieppe on the Normandy coast; notes that Braque painted about ten interiors of women engaged in musical or artistic pursuits; remarks that the painting on the easel recalls Picasso's contemporaneous sculpted heads of Marie-Thérèse Walter.
William S. Lieberman. "Donnés au Met." Connaissance des arts no. 539 (May 1997), p. 71, ill. (color).
Grace Glueck. "A Surprise, and Then a Collection." New York Times (February 28, 1997), p. C31.
Christian Briend in "Catalogue." De Manet à Bacon: La collection Jacqueline Delubac. Lyon, 1998, p. 62.
Sophie Bowness. "Braque's Etchings for Hesiod's 'Theogony' and Archaic Greece Revived." Burlington Magazine 142 (April 2000), p. 214.
William S. Lieberman inPicasso and the School of Paris: Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exh. cat., Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. [Tokyo], 2002, pp. 120, 126–27, 166, no. 62, ill. (color).
Roberta Smith. "Artists Caught in the Act." New York Times (January 5, 2007), p. E44, ill.
Richard Shiff inGeorges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism. Exh. cat., Acquavella Galleries. New York, 2011, pp. 41, 146, 150, colorpl. 34.
Dieter Buchhart inGeorges Braque: Pioneer of Modernism. Exh. cat., Acquavella Galleries. New York, 2011, p. 65.
Braque painted this subject in two other pictures of 1936: Woman at an Easel (Green Screen) in the Art Institute of Chicago and Woman at an Easel in the Musée de Beaux-Arts, Lyon (Mangin 1961, pp. 2 and 3).
Georges Braque (French, Argenteuil 1882–1963 Paris)
1956
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