Unknown Artist
1882-1969
Le Grande Boulevarde
MEDIUM: Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS: 13 x 18 inches
ESTIMATE: $ 16,000 - $ 24,000
Signed lower right
Titled verso
SHIPPING DIMENSIONS: 20 x 25
2019,
LOT 278
1882-1969
MEDIUM: Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS: 13 x 18 inches
ESTIMATE: $ 16,000 - $ 24,000
Signed lower right
Titled verso
SHIPPING DIMENSIONS: 20 x 25
Edouard Cortes was a rare dealer in nostalgia. The soft snow on Le Grand Boulevard, the warm light glowing inside the little bistros, the mixture of vintage cars and horse drawn carriages and trolleys: considering the actual world and time that Cortes inhabited, when the Western Front of the First World War was just miles from the outskirts of Paris. At 32, Cortes was drafted, fought and was wounded, was awarded the Croix de Guerre, and returned to the field to use his artistic talents to draw German dispositions. Then, of course, after a brief interlude, the Second World War, invasion, occupation. Is it any wonder that his art hearkens back to peaceful, congenial times?