Le collier bleu

Inscriptions: Signed (lower left)

Expositions: Galerie Art Vivant, Paris, Jean Metzinger, 40 peinture inédites de 1910 à 1952, 15 May – 15 June 1952, no. 3

Notes: There exists a smaller version of this painting without the necklace, measuring 50 x 65 cm, with other differences as well. Overall the compositions are very similar.

Metzinger’s Post-Cubism (of the 1940s and 1950s) can roughly be said to be characterized by a combination of geometric forms, subject matter and techniques with the subtle and highly conscious use of both motifs and conventions from earlier periods. These works are less complex, simple in comparison to many of his earlier Cubist works, but with enough complexity to make them interesting. These works can be seen as a subtle shift away from the espousal of abstraction, conceptualization and surrealism that had dominated avant-garde art during the mid-1920s. These were indeed a development from the precedent set by Cubism, the eclecticism of which exploited the semiotic power of everyday experience. Metzinger’s Post-Cubism was both the continuation of Modernism and its transcendence. (A. Mittelmann, 2012)