Danseuse au café

Inscriptions: Signed (lower center-left)

Provenance: Albert Gleizes collection

Robert Lebel, acquired from Albert Gleizes; sold to Sidney Janis Gallery, between 1955 and 1956

Sidney Janis Gallery, between 1955 and 1956, January 11, 1957 (purchased from Robert Lebel, Paris, sold to the Albright Art Gallery, January 11, 1957)

Exhibitions: Salon d’Automne, Paris, 1912, no. 1195 (titled Danseuse). 

Galerie des Beaux-Arts, 140 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, Les Créateurs du Cubisme, preface by Maurice Raynal, catalogue by Raymond Cogniat, March-April 1935, no. 137, titled Le Bar (Collection de M. Léonce Rosenberg).

Literature: Au Salon d’Automne, Les Indépendants, Excelsior, 2 Octobre 1912 (reproduced)

Le Monde illustré, 56eme Année, no. 2898, 12 October 1912, p. 235 (reproduced)

Les Annales politiques et littéraires, n. 1529, 13 October 1912 (reproduced)

Jean Metzinger, 1883-1956, Atelier sur l’herbe, École des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, January 1985, p. 21, reproduced.

Iowa City Press-Citizen, 29 August 1985, p. 17 (reproduced)

The Daily Iowan, Iowa City, Friday, 13 September 1985 (reproduced)

Gleizes, Metzinger, du Cubisme et après, L’Adresse, Musée de la Poste, Paris, 9 May – 22 September 2012; and Musée de Lodève, 22 June – 3 November 2013, p. 23 (reproduced)

Notes: A photograph published in L’Illustration, Paris, 1-7 October 1912, shows the Cubist room at the 1912 Salon d’Automne. This painting is shown hanging above Paysage (AM-11-024). 

The Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d’Automne created a controversy in the Municipal Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such ‘barbaric’ art. The Cubists were defended by the Socialist deputy, Marcel Sembat. This painting was realized as Gleizes and Metzinger, in preparation for the Salon de la Section d’Or, published a major defense of Cubism, resulting in the first theoretical essay on the new movement, Du “Cubisme” (1912).

For further information on this painting consult the Wikipedia article titled Dancer in a Café, written and published by Alexander Mittelmann (aka Coldcreation) 8 January 2013, and the Metzinger monograph, Volume I.