Alix AYMÉ (1894-1989)

Lot 228
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Estimation :
180000 - 220000 EUR
Alix AYMÉ (1894-1989)
Laotienne devant sa paillote, 1930 Oil on canvas 78 x 54 cm - 30 5/8 x 21 1/4 in. This painting will be on loan for the exhibition: Itinéraires de l’ailleurs. Artistes voyageuses. De la «Belle époque » à la seconde guerre mondiale. Palais Lumière, Evian. December 17, 2022 – May 29, 2023. This work will be keeping in France until June 2023. “The general impression that one has of Laos is certainly not that of a rich country, but of a simple and happy country. The few French people who live there sometimes let themselves be taken in by this quietness, this sweetness of life, and one quotes more than one who no longer thinks of returning to France but lives in Laotian costume, barefoot, and doesn’t know which president governs us.”1 It is in these words that Alix Aymé evokes Laos, a territory where she was sent by the French government to prepare the Colonial Exhibition of 1931. The charm of the country inspired her to paint some forty pieces destined for the walls of the Laos pavilion at the Colonial Exhibition, including this work. Sensitive to ethnography, Alix Aymé offers a realistic vision of the Laotian tribe through the portrait of this young woman. A tribe established in the valley of the middle Nam-Ou as well as in the lower valley of the navigable tributaries, it is described by the commander Georges Aymé as follows: « In spite of their defects, the chiefs and inhabitants are in fact very sympathetic; the Laotian country of cheerful and easy life is the most cheerful of the Territory, boys and girls are very lively there and do not generate melancholy ».² The oil chosen by Alix Aymé makes it possible to adopt a large format and a better apprehension of the subject. This Western medium also allows the artist to use a lively and colorful palette in the image of the Laotian people. Reminiscences of his training with Maurice Denis, a Nabi painter, can be felt through the blossoming of tones that have a primary importance in the composition. Yellow, red, green and purple dance joyfully on the canvas and form the characteristic stripes of the Laotian costume. Alix Aymé’s interest in primitivism is expressed by the meticulousness with which this young girl is represented, reminiscent of Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian girls. Although she is willingly posing, the shyness of the young girl can be seen in her swaying right hand and her slightly unnatural left hand firmly placed on her thigh. The artist succeeds in capturing the youthful and enchanting beauty of this Laotian girl and thus offers a magnificent testimony of the indigenous people
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