L’Oiseau bleu

Inscriptions: Initialed indistinctly (lower right)

Provenance: Albert Gleizes

L’Oiseau Bleu was purchased by the City of Paris in 1937 from Gleizes, who had owned it until then. It was following an arrangement between the Ville de Paris, Gleizes and Metzinger that this purchase took place.

Exhibitions: Salon des Indépendants, Paris, 19 March – 18 May 1913, no. 2087

Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Der Sturm, Berlin, 20 September – 1 November 1913, no 287, titled Der blaue Vogel.

Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, Paris, 25 May – 25 November 1937, no. 11 (in Les Maitres de I’Art Indépendant 1895-1937, Petit Palais, Paris)

Salon des Indépendants, Un siècle d’art français, 1850-1950, Paris, 17 April – 10 May 1953, no. 827

Les Cubistes, Bordeaux, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, 4 May – 1 September 1973; and Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, 26 September – 10 November 1973, p. 83, no. 156 (detail reproduced).

Paris 1937, l’art indépendant: MAM, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 12 June – 30 August 1987, no. 254

Apollinaire critique d’art, Pavillon des Arts, Paris, 1993, n. 86

De Picasso à Soulages, Otsu (Japan), Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, 3 April 1999 – 9 May 1999, Akita (Japan), Akita Senshu Museum of Art, 15 May 1999 – 13 June 1999, Tokyo (Japon), Yasuda Kasai Museum of Art, 19 June 1999 – 15 August 1999

De Picasso à Soulages, Marugame (Japan), Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, 21 August 1999 – 26 September 1999

Der Sturm – Aufbruch zur Moderne, Wuppertal (Germany), Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal, 11 March 2012 – 11 June 2012

Apollinaire, le regard du poète, Paris (France), Musée de l’Orangerie, 5 April 2016 – 18 July 2016, n. 97

Le Cubisme : Repenser le monde, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre de création industrielle, Paris, 17 October 2018 – 25 February 2019

Paris Moderne, Schwäbisch Hall (Germany), Kunsthalle Würth, 15 April 2019 – 15 September 2019

Accrochage automne 2019, Paris (France), Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 8 October 2019 – 31 December 2020

Literature: Fry, Edward F., Cubism, Londres, Thames and Hudson, 1966, p. 191

Les Cubistes, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1973, cat 156 p. 83

Chefs-d’oeuvre du Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris-Musées et SAMAM, 1985, pp. 38, 140

Caffin Madaule, Liliane, Maria Blanchard 1881-1932, catalogue raisonné tome I, Canterbury, UK, 1992, p. 173, ISBN 0-9518533-0-9

Pagé, Suzanne, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris: La collection, Paris Musées, 2009, pp. 372–373, ISBN 978-2-879008-88-2

Gleizes-Metzinger, Du cubisme et après, Musée de la Poste, 2012; Musée de Lodève, 2012; Beaux-arts de Paris les éditions, reproduced in color p. 43

For the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Cubist manifesto Du “Cubisme”, 1912–2012, a French postage stamp was printed with the image of Metzinger’s L’Oiseau bleu.

Der Sturm-Zentrum der Avant-Garde, Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal, 2012, p. 189, ISBN 978-3-89202-081-3

Notes: For detailed information on this masterpiece see Wikipedia article L’Oiseau bleu (Metzinger), and therein references, written and published by Alexander Mittelmann (aka Coldcreation) 22 January 2013. See, too, the Metzinger monograph, Volume I.