Jean Puy (1876 – 1960), The Little Italian, 1938

Oil on paper mounted on cardboard. Signed and dated lower right. 55 × 38 cm.
Bibliography: Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre de Jean Puy, 2001, no. 30445, p. 296.

Trained in Lyon under Tony Tollet, Jean Puy moved to Paris in 1898 to study at the Académie Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant, before joining Eugène Carrière’s studio. There he met Matisse, Derain and Manguin, with whom he would exhibit at the 1905 Salon d’Automne, at the very heart of the Fauvist movement. His work, initially marked by the simplification of form and bold use of colour, later evolved toward a vibrant naturalism infused with Mediterranean light and an intimate sense of sensuality.

In The Little Italian Girl, painted in 1938, Puy revisits the theme of the female nude in an atmosphere of quiet reflection. The model, seated on richly coloured cushions, rests her head on her hand in a pose tinged with melancholy. The palette blends deep reds, golden tones and turquoise accents in broad, vigorous strokes that fuse figure and setting into a single vibration. The body, shaped by light, retains the soft volumes of his earlier studies, while the richness of the chromatic range reaffirms the painter’s enduring allegiance to the Fauvist spirit.Both sensual and meditative, the work reflects the maturity of an artist who remained faithful to colour as his primary source of emotion.

Represented in major French and international museums—from Paris (Musée d’Art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Petit Palais) and Saint-Tropez to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg—Jean Puy holds an essential place in the history of Fauvism and early-twentieth-century French painting.

Provenance: Galerie Laurenceau, Paris; Galerie Bernicat, Roanne; Collections of the Petit Palais, Geneva; Private collection, London ; Galerie Désiré, Lyon.