Gris composed this work during a three-month trip in 1913 to the small village of Céret in the Pyrenees. While this painting is not signed or dated, its colorful Cubist style of broad, angular, overlapping planes indicates that it belongs to a group of still lifes produced at this time. Here, Gris has painted a wood-grain table with three playing cards—heart, diamond, and club—a violin, and a copy of the newspaper Le Journal. The rust-red diamond pattern in the background emulates wallpaper and provides the fragmented image with the suggestion of depth.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Violin and Playing Cards on a Table
Artist:Juan Gris (Spanish, Madrid 1887–1927 Boulogne-sur-Seine)
Date:1913
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:39 3/8 × 25 3/4 in. (100 × 65.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Florene M. Schoenborn, 1995
Accession Number:1996.403.14
[Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris, 1913–14; stock no. 1831; sequestered Kahnweiler stock, Paris, 1914–23; fourth Kahnweiler sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 7–8, 1923, no. 295, as "Violon et Guitare"]; [Galerie Simon, Paris, in 1923]; [Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris]; Mr. and Mrs. Maurice J. Speiser, Philadelphia and New York (until 1944; their sale, Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, January 26–27, 1944, no. 98, as "Still Life"); [Valentine Gallery, New York, 1944; sold on December 27, 1944, with works by Dufy, Picasso, and Trojan, for $11,600, to Marx]; Samuel and Florene Marx, Chicago (1944–his d. 1964); Florene May Marx, later Mrs. Wolfgang Schoenborn, New York (1964–d. 1995; her bequest to MMA)
New York. Durand-Ruel Galleries. "Manet to Picasso: Still Life," March 8–31, 1944, no. 7 (as "Nature morte," lent by a private collection).
Arts Club of Chicago. "Variety in Abstraction," March 5–30, 1946, no. 20 (as "Abstraction," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Marx, Chicago).
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Juan Gris," April 9–June 1, 1958, unnumbered cat. (p. 31; as "Still Life with Playing Cards," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx, Chicago).
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Juan Gris," June 24–July 24, 1958, unnumbered cat.
San Francisco Museum of Art. "Juan Gris," August 11–September 14, 1958, unnumbered cat.
Los Angeles County Museum. "Juan Gris," September 29–October 26, 1958, unnumbered cat.
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. 36; as "Still Life with Playing Cards").
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. 7 (as "Violin and Playing Cards").
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. 74; as "Violin and Playing Cards").
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. 20.
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. 20.
Madrid. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. "Juan Gris: Paintings and Drawings 1910–1927," June 22–September 19, 2005, no. 33 (as "Violin and Playing Cards").
Lisbon. Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian: Centro de Arte Moderna. "Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso: Diálogo de Vanguardas," November 14, 2006–January 14, 2007, no. 174 (as "Violino e cartas de jogar numa mesa [Violin and Playing Cards on a Table]").
Edward Alden Jewell. "Shows Aid Causes: Loan Exhibitions Assist the Red Cross and Children's Aid—Art for Britain." New York Times (March 12, 1944), p. X6.
Aline B. Louchheim. "Still-Life." Art News 43 (March 15–31, 1944), p. 10.
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, p. 38, ill. p. 36 (color), discusses the "almost organic guitar which forms the apex of the pyramidal grouping".
Juan Antonio Gaya-Nuño. Juan Gris. Boston, 1975, p. 247, no. 259, ill. p. 214, calls it "Still Life with Playing-cards" and erroneously locates it in the University of St. Louis, Washington.
Douglas Cooper with Margaret Potter. Juan Gris: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint. Paris, 1977, vol. 1, pp. XL, 100–101, no. 58, ill., call it "Violon et cartes (Violin and Playing Cards)"; include it among thirteen pictures executed at Céret from August to the end of October 1913 [see Ref. Derouet 1999].
Malcolm Gee. Dealers, Critics, and Collectors of Modern Painting: Aspects of the Parisian Art Market Between 1910 and 1930. PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art. New York, 1981, appendix F, p. 69, no. 56.
Carol Vogel. "32 Works of Art by Masters Left to Met and the Modern." New York Times (November 25, 1996), pp. A1, C12, notes that it is the first Gris to enter the MMA collection.
William S. Lieberman. "Donnés au Met." Connaissance des arts no. 539 (May 1997), pp. 66–67, ill. (color).
Grace Glueck. "A Surprise, and Then a Collection." New York Times (February 28, 1997), p. C31.
Jeffrey Kastner. "One Donor, Two Museums." Art News 96 (January 1997), p. 38.
Christian Derouet, ed. Juan Gris: Correspondances avec Léonce Rosenberg, 1915–1927. Paris, 1999, p. 67, letter no. 104 n. 17, lists this picture among twelve painted in Céret, referencing Gris's August 10, 1917 letter to Rosenberg categorizing ten paintings signed at Céret between August 1 and October 30, 1913 [see Ref. Cooper 1977].
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. 56, 167, no. 20, ill. p. 65 (color).
Paloma Esteban Leal inJuan Gris: Paintings and Drawings 1910–1927. Ed. Paloma Esteban Leal. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Madrid, 2005, vol. 1, p. 38, colorpl. 33; vol. 2, p. 48, no. 33, ill., considers it "almost certainly" executed in Céret.
María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, ed. Juan Gris: Correspondencia y escritos. Barcelona, 2008, p. 182 n. 287.
García Ponce de Léon. Juan Gris: La pasión por el Cubismo. Madrid, 2008, p. 270, ill. p. 194 (color).
Douglas Cooper, with Margaret Potter, updated by Alan Hyman, and Elizabeth Snowden. Juan Gris: Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint/ Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings. 2nd ed. (1st ed., 1977). San Francisco, 2014, vol. 1, pp. 110–11, no. 58, ill. (color), call it "Violon et cartes (Violin and Playing Cards; Violín y Naipes)".
Rebecca Rabinow inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 316 n. 22.
Juan Gris (Spanish, Madrid 1887–1927 Boulogne-sur-Seine)
1913
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