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The art world’s Wonka?
Félix Fénéon was a French art critic, editor, publisher, dealer, and collector who championed the careers of young artists such as Georges-Pierre Seurat, Paul Signac, Henri Matisse, and many others. A fervent anarchist, Fénéon believed in the potential of avant-garde art to promote a more harmonious, egalitarian world.
This is a portrait Signac painted of Fénéon in 1890. The lines of the subject’s nose, elbow, and cane descend in a zigzag pattern, like the rhythmic “beats and angles” of the title, and the flower he holds rhymes with the upturned curl of his goatee. Attention to abstract patterns continues in the kaleidoscopic pinwheel of the backdrop.
See the painting in our fifth-floor galleries, on view now.
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Paul Signac. “Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890.” 1890. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
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