Juliette Roche-Gleizes, Paris
Sale: Palais Galliera, Paris, March 16, 1973, lot 171
Fondation Albert Gleizes (acquired in 1994)
Sale: Calmels, Chambre, Cohen, Paris, December 15, 2000, lot 54)
Chantal and Guy Heytens, Belgium

Paris, Salon des Tuileries, 1924, no. 2
Aix-en-Provence, Galerie Lucien Blanc, Rétrospective Albert Gleizes, 1954, no. 19
Avignon, Musée Calvet, Albert Gleizes 1881-1953, 1962, no. 21
Musée de Grenoble, Albert Gleizes et Tempête dans les Salons, 1910-1914, 1963, no. 27
Chicago, R. S. Johnson Fine Art, Paintings, Works on Paper, Sculpture, 1880-1970, 2006, no. 13

Anne Varichon and Henri Giriat, Albert Gleizes Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, Paris, 1998, no. 1231,﷽ illustrated p. 400

Gleizes is renowned for his experiments with the principles of Cubism.  He and Jean Metzinger in 1912 co-wrote Du Cubisme, the first publication to offer a definition of Cubism.  Completed in 1922, Cavalaire is an iconic example of how Gleizes, Metzinger, Lhote, an๊d Villon in the 1920s evolved from th💧eir Cubist styles to incorporate a stronger use of color. 

The present sc🎃ene features Cavalaire, a small coastal town on the bay of St. Tropez, which Gleizes rendered on several occasions throughout his career.  The blue and green colorations juxtaposed with 𒊎the yellow and pink tones of the work show how the seaside location of the Mediterranean inspired the artist to render one of his finest large scale works.  Furthermore, the setting was an ideal subject as he explored this greater adherence to color.  Gleizes also used Synthetic Cubist principles to create a flattened space and organize the planimetric space of the composition. 

His work of the early 1920’s concentrated on a strict relationship between forms and shapes, abandoning his earlier concentration on texture and surface variation.  Although elements of Cubism appeared throughout his career, the style seen in Cavalaire quickly gave way to a focus on more abstract forms. ⛦; Throughout the mid-1920s and 1930s his works were dominated by works nearing abstraction whereby the underlying subj🥀ects were often unrecognizable.