Emile Auguste Wery (1868-1935) - In Bed, 1889 - Dedicated To Emile Bernard

Emile Auguste Wery (1868-1935)
Au lit, 1889
oil on canvas
32 x 40 cm
43.5 x 52 cm with frame
Signed 'E. Wery', dated and dedicated lower right: 'A l'ami Émile Bernard, souvenir affectueux

The son of a Reims engraver-chiseler, painter Émile Wéry went to Paris at a very early age, where he was successively taught by Léon Bonnat, Jules Lefebvre and François Flameng at the Académie Julian. It was at this famous school that he befriended Henri Matisse, who occupied an adjacent studio on Boulevard Montparnasse. During a trip to Brittany with Augustin Hanicotte in the spring of 1896, Matisse reported that Wéry had adopted certain aesthetic principles of Impressionism, notably a bright, clear chromatic range: "At the time, I only had bistres and earths on my palette, whereas Wéry had an Impressionist palette". Exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Français as early as 1889, the young artist met with some success, winning third- and second-class medals in 1897 and 1898, then a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1900, before being named Chevalier de Légion d'Honneur in 1906. His atmospheric landscapes and Breton subjects were quickly snapped up by renowned collectors such as Count Edward Aleksander Raczyński and Henry Vasnier. Around 1910, he settled in Provence, first close to Renoir and his house in Les Collettes, then towards the end of the war in Hauts-de-Cagnes, in an old mill he christened "La Maison rouge" and frescoed in the dining room. Dated 1889, the painting we are presenting is one of a rare group of early works by Emile Wéry. The affectionate dedication to "l'ami Émile Bernard" (a friend he probably met on the benches of the Académie Julian) testifies to a real closeness with the avant-garde group, who exhibited their canvases that same year at the Café Volpini, as part of the Exposition Universelle. Here, Wéry introduces us to the intimacy of a small bedroom, where a young woman lies slumbering on her bed. The composition is based on a network of horizontal and vertical lines, superimposing the burlap blanket, the blue-and-white-striped straw mattress and the gray box spring of the wooden bed. In a subtle play of light, the open door on the left delicately shades part of the room, leaving the model's elusive, somewhat enigmatic profile in semi-darkness. The model's half-seated position, resting on a large, finely-brushed pillow, with his shoulders bare and his arm stretched out at his side, seems to suggest convalescence, lending a more tragic dimension to this silent scene. Assuming the fading of consciousness typical of sleep, our work is already in line with one of Symbolism's favorite themes, and brings Wéry closer to his contemporaries Vuillard and Bonnard.