Sale: Bernaerts, Antwerp, November 18-19, 1990
Acquired at the above sale

Canvas is lined and its edges are reinforced with tape. There are a few minor surface losses at the upper right corner. A few areas of thin stable cracking are visible in the thicker areas of pigment. Though slightly dirty, the surface of the canvas retains a rich and textured impasto. Under UV light: bands of retouching are visible along the extreme edges of the composition, probably to address prior frame abrasion. Overall the work is in very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

😼A truly unique painter with a brief yet intense career, Jules Schmalzigaug is the only Belgian artist🦩 to have fully participated in the Futurist movement. In 1910, Schmalzigaug moved to Paris to study art and became immersed in the worlds of the Nabis painters such as Bonnard and Vuillard as well as the first Cubist artists including Gleizes and Metzinger. In 1911, Schmalzigaug exhibited three paintings at the Salon des Indépendants alongside works by Duchamp, Picabia, Delaunay and Kandinsky.

On February 8, 1912, Schmalzigaug discovered the Italian Futurist painters at an exhibition presented by Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. In a letter to his parents, he wrote of the exhibition: "It is truly extraordinary from a 'never before seen' point of view. This is, decidedly, an unexpected style of painting—impossible to imagine anything like it—it is an enormous blow to all received ideas." The evening of the exhibition, the young artist attended a lecture given by Marinetti which, no doubt to his delight, ended in a brawl. The following year, Schmalzigaug left for Venice and soon forged links with several founders of the Futurist movement including Boccioni, Balla and Cangiullo with whom he entered into a prolific and fruitful association. In April 1914, Umberto Boccioni invited him to participate in the Esposizione Libera Futurista Internazionale at the Galleria Futurista in Rome where Sc𝕴hmalzigaug exhibited six paintings (possibly including the present work). This eventও was the first Futurist exhibition organized in Italy that was open to foreign artists, and it included works by Kandinsky and Archipenko.

The First World War brought an abrupt end to this period of profound artistic and intellectual stimulation; Schmalzigaug left Italy to live in exile with his family in La Haye and though he continued his artistic explorations to a degree, he eventually fell into a depression and abruptly took his own life on May 12, 1917. Though largely unrecognized for his vanguard contributions to art history, recent museum retrospectives have brought new scholarship to the fore on this important artist. Composition futuriste is a testament to the success of Schmalzigaug's artistry and philosophies, corresponding perfectly to the tenets he outlined in a letter to Boccioni in January of 1914: "Orchestrated like a tapestry, in one dimension, of colorist elements suggested by a given subject and arranged according to a rhythm in arabesque, arbitrarily dictated by intuition or emotion."


Fig. 1 A photograph of the artist.