Oil On Canvas By Andre Cottavoz, 1977 - Tamenaga Gallery, Tokyo

OIL ON CANVAS BY ANDRE COTTAVOZ, 1977 SIZE (F12): 50 × 61 CM, WITH FRAME 70 × 80 CM Provenance: Taménaga Gallery, Tokyo
The work is accompanied by its original gallery labels, preserved on the reverse, bearing the internal reference numbers of the Taménaga Gallery in Tokyo (No. 245) and its Paris branch (No. P648).    Cottavoz met Kiyoshi Taménaga in 1957, an encounter that the artist’s biography describes as pivotal to his career. Taménaga notably organized a Cottavoz exhibition in Tokyo in 1972. The Taménaga Gallery itself states that it represented Cottavoz on a permanent basis in Paris beginning in 1984 and exhibited his work in Tokyo, Osaka, and Paris. Starting in the late 1980s, Taménaga obtained exclusive rights to sell his paintings, and a large portion of his body of work is now in Japan.   In this 1977 work, André Cottavoz approaches the motif of almond trees in bloom with a deeply personal style, in which the painterly texture becomes the true subject of the painting. The trunks and branches are built up with broad, thick brushstrokes, while the pale flowers emerge from the composition like flashes of light. The painter does not seek a precise botanical representation: the tree is rendered through gesture, color, and impasto. The contrasts between the deep greens, earthy tones, and the whites of the blossoms give the scene great density and a sense of movement. The motif of almond trees, associated with the renewal of spring, is treated here with a certain, almost sculptural force. Nature becomes a construction of matter and light, a hallmark of Cottavoz’s painting. Created in 1977, this canvas belongs to a period when his pictorial language was fully established, straddling figuration and the expression of matter. Its provenance—the Taménaga Gallery in Tokyo and Paris, which played a key role in disseminating his work in Japan—also lends this painting historical significance.