Lot 29: Nils von Dardel (Swedish, 1888-1943)

Baren (Bar)
signed and dated 'Dardel 1920.' (lower right)
pencil and gouache heightened with white on card
16 7/8 x 25 in. (43 x 63.5 cm.)
Executed in 1920

Sweden, Nordiska Konstförbundet, Nils Dardel, no. 23.
Sweden, Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, Nils Dardel, 1928, no. 3. Göteborg, Konsthallen, Nils Dardel, 1938, no. 22.
Sweden, Skanska Konstmuseum, Akademiska föreningen, Nils Dardel, 1939, no. 24.
Oslo, Kunstnernes hus, Den Svenske Maler Nils Dardel, 1939, no. 71.
Sweden, Liljevalchs Konsthall, Nils Dardel, 1955, no. 167.
Sweden, Galerie Blanche, Malningar fran ungdomstiden 1908-1920, 1958, no. 42.
Sweden, Malmö Musuem, Nils Dardel. Fran 1904 till 1924, 1963, no. 101.
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Nils Dardel, 1988, no. 117.
Paris, Museé des Arts Décoratifs, Nils Dardel, 1988, no. 117.

S. Alfons, 'Columbi agg', Konstrevy 5-6, Stockholm, 1955, p. 210 (illustrated).
K. Asplund, Nils Dardel. Del I. Ungdomstiden, Stockholm, 1957, pp. 199 and 200 (illustrated).
K. Asplund, Nils Dardel. Del II. De senare aren, Stockholm, 1958, p. 260.
E. Näslund, Nils Dardel, Uddevalla, 1988, p. 158 (illustrated).

Countess Thora Dardel Hamilton.
Private collection, Sweden.

Stifled from lack of creative stimulation, Nils von Dardel was one of the a group of young artists including Sigrid Hjertén, Isaac Grünewald and Leander Engström that went to Paris to feed their enthusiasm to experiment. While initially it was the reputation of Henri Matisse that drew most young Scandinavian artists to the French capital, Dardel did not draw much stylistic inspiration from the artist. This Swedish painter indulged himself in the creative exploration of various movements that were gripping the Parisian art world including Cubism, Fauvism, Pointillism and also Primitivism prompted by his introduction by art dealer Wilhelm von Uhde to Henri Rousseau (Le Douanier) in 1912.

In 1913, Dardel became close friends with fellow Swede Rolf de Maré, who would later create the Ballets Suèdois, which performed in Paris between 1920 and 1925. Although Dardel as an artist was not particularly wealthy, he was incredibly imaginative and talented and as De Maré had the enthusiasm and the funds, together they made a fruitful and dynamic duo in Paris during those eventful years with the dance company. In the early 20s Dardel produced the stage sets for the premiére piece Midsommarvaka (Midsummer Wake), and his other works from this period often recall these designs; some are like sketches for a drama, or stills from a film in which the viewer assumes the role of author and director. In the present work Baren (Bar), the viewer can freely assume this position imagining different roles for the figures portrayed and to play out various scenes. Although it is not known with any certainty who the figures are and what part they played in Parisian society, one can assume that as Dardel painted the people that he met during his hectic and varied, though ultimately destructive and itinerant life in Paris in the 20s, those portrayed in the painting are art world luminaries; artists, dealers, patrons and friends. Baren is typically highly esoteric and characterised by a sharp-edged wit, for it is naively painted almost to the point of caricature, likely contenders for the louche males; Alfred Flechtheim (the German art dealer who was a dominant motif in the artists works from his Parisian period), dealer Jacob Epstein, poet-writer-art crit ic Guillaume Apollinaire, collector-dealers Leonce Rosenberg, Walther Halvorsen and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. While the bar itself seems to be elegantly portrayed with suitably elegant, if rather efete, gentlemen it may depict the Café Dôme or Café de la Rotunde, the meeting-place of the Cubists around the time the picture was painted. It was there that Dardels wife Thora (née Klinckowström), an exceptional woman, full of amusing observations and a previous owner of the present work (fig. 1) met Modigliani in 1919 and subsequently sat for one of his last portraits (fig. 2). In her writings, Thora wrote that she found it to be a dirty stinking dive with sawdust on the floor and the worst kind of characters at every table. She also wrote that it was here that she first encountered many of the eras most influential artists - Modigliani, Cocteau, Radiguet, Pascin, Braque, Léger and many more who indeed, may have been the sitter's for the present work which remained in her personal collection even after their divorce in 1932.

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