409. SIGRID HJERTÉN. Coin du midi, oil on canvas, 46 x 55 cm.

SIGRID HJERTÉN 1885 - 1948 Coin du midi.
Signed HJERTÉN and on verso Sigrid Hjertén. Oil on Board, 46 x 55 cm.

PROVENANCE Bukowski Auctions, auction no. 485, Moderna, autumn 1992, catalog no. 104 Private Swedish collection LITERATURE Compare with A. Wahlgren, Sigrid Hjertén - one of Sweden's foremost artists, p. 136 and E. Haglund Siri Hjertén cat. no. 44.

In 1920, the Grünewald Hjertén family returned to Paris, where ten years earlier they had been apprenticed to Matisse. However, the move back to the capital of art did not turn out quite as Sigrid Hjertén had imagined, as she periodically had to live alone during Isaac Grünewald's long stays at home in Stockholm. The heart was affected by temporary depressions, which also affected her painting. Her incipient mental problems also became apparent in her art, where the previously calm and intimate painting was replaced by a more anxious and almost vibrating painting with diagonal and strong brushstrokes.

To seek peace, Hjertén got a driver's license and went out into the French countryside, sometimes for shorter trips with her son Iván and sometimes with her husband. During the 1920s, the couple traveled on several occasions to the countries around the northern Mediterranean. The heart was struck by the strong clear light, the flamboyant colors and the pleasant temperature, and came in the following years to constantly return to the subject sphere with the hope of capturing the French light and atmosphere. The trips south again created time and desire for Hjertén to paint and her diary entries from the time gossip about the joy she felt for life in the French countryside and its small villages.

Sigrid Hjertén was a refined colorist, who contrasted warm and cold colors with expressive brushstrokes. In her paintings, the color speaks for itself and describes an important dynamic and movement, but at the same time an eternal stillness. In the auction's painting, Hjertén has just captured a moment of life, joy and companionship. The crimson color in the woman's dress runs like a red thread through Hjertén's artistry and is seen in significant paintings such as The Red Curtain or Kornhamnstorg's red lifting cranes and has been interpreted as a carrier of female sexuality, strength but also weakness and anxiety.

In the book Sigrid Hjertén - one of Sweden's foremost artists" from 2008, author Anders Wahlgren describes a similar motif painted at the same time. "The motif is taken from a car trip through France this year and a lunch break in some small town in Provence. Over the years they will have traveled thousands of miles on French dirt roads. The car becomes like a rolling studio. Son Iván has also started painting. A series of gouaches are created, either directly in front of the subjects or in the room, when they arrive at some nice inn. To remember the motifs, the occasional black-and-white postcard is bought as a souvenir. Sometimes Sigrid makes a checklist of the colors. They did the large oil paintings in the studio in Paris after returning home.” Hjertén returned to the same motif on at least one other occasion, with a similar composition (see below). The sun-drenched urban landscape with its vibrant people echoes the joy of seeing that Hjertén expressed during these short but intense journeys south.