Dimensions: 73.5 x 54 cm
Signed p.g.: 'Eug. Zak'
other versions of the title: Female guitarist (Gitarrespielerin), Boy with a guitar, Le Musicien, La musicienne melancholique, Young man with a mandolin
on the reverse, circular customs stamp (repeated on the painter's loom), inscribed on the loom: 'The Melancholy Musician', '36' (in circle) and hardly legible notes, paper inventory stickers with numbers: 'H.S. 16.7', '18', '2366', and 'HS 1637 | Rf VLXXX | AL XXX'.
Origins
collection of Spencer Kellogg Jr, United States
private collection, United States
DESA Unicum, May 2018
private collection, Poland
Exhibited
Buffalo Fine Arts Gallery, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1938 (as "Le Musicien, La musicienne melancholique")
International Art Center of Roerich Museum, New York, 1930 (as "Le Musicien, La musicienne melancholique")
Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, 1929
Eugene Zak (1884 - 1926) Exposition Rétrospective, Galerie Macel Bernheim, Paris, 1927
Salon d'Automne, Grand Palais, Paris, November 5 - December 19, 1926
Salon des Tuileries, Paris, 1925
Literature
Eugeniusz Zak 1884-1926, exhibition catalog, ed. Barbara Brus-Malinowska, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 2004, p. 158 (ill.), cat. no. 216 (as "Young Man with Mandolin")
Stefania Zahorska, Eugeniusz Zak, Warsaw 1927, p. nlb., ill. 22
Rétrospective Eugène Zak, "La Semaine à Paris" 1927, no. 264, p. 51 (ill. as "Le Musicien")
Edmond Jaloux, Eugène Zak, "L'Amour de l'Art" 1927, no. 5, p. 196
Exposition Rétrospective Eugene Zak, "La Renaissance" 1926, no. 11, p. 613
Catalogue du 19eme Salon d'Automne, Paris 1926 (?).
Florent Fels, Paul Barchan, Eugen Zak, "Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration" 1925/1926, vol. 57, p. 386 (ill. as "Guitarrespielerin")
Mieczyslaw Sterling, Eugene Zak, "Fine Arts" 1925/1926, R. 2, p. 500 (il. as "Boy with a guitar")
Henri Martinie, Eugène Zak, "Der Cicerone" 1925, Vol. XVII, No. 13, p. 652 (il. as "Gitarrespielerin")
Edward, Woroniecki, Paris Tuiljerj Salon in 1925, "The World," 1925, no. 32, p. 3 (il. as "Gitarrespielerin")
Archival photograph of the painting from the collection of the artist, National Museum in Warsaw, inv. no. DI 99811
Biography
Eugeniusz Zak, one of the most outstanding Polish painters of the 1st half of the 20th century, worked mainly in France, but also in Poland and Germany. He is considered a representative of neoclassicism in painting. He was associated with the artists of the Warsaw group RYTM (founded in 1922) and the École de Paris circle. He went to Paris to study in 1901, then to Munich and Italy. In 1904 he settled permanently in the French capital, where he exhibited at the Paris Salons: Autumn, Independent or Society of National Arts. He also exhibited extensively in the galleries of Paris, New York, Cologne or London. His work was initially influenced by the Symbolists and Nabists of Maurice Denis' circle. Later, his paintings exhibited characteristics of Neoclassical painting, Art Deco and École de Paris Expressionism. He was an opponent of the avant-garde, but one can find influences in his paintings, processed by his own creative personality of Cezanne or Matisse. The most important feature of his art was to create from the imagination, drawing on the motifs of old art and their decorative transformation. He considered the art of the early Italian Renaissance to be the most perfect. "The heroes of Zak's compositions are "free people": fishermen, shepherds, women with children, also comedians, dancers, jugglers, vagabonds, shown sometimes in an empty interior, sometimes as residents of Arcadia. The idyllic landscapes, painted by the seriously ill artist, revealed a characteristic dissonance between the beauty of the southern, human-friendly landscape and a sense of transience."
