(Meynes, 1904 – Paris, 1977)
La Machine agricole, 1938
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right Coutaud 38
Entitled and dated on the back on the canvas La Machine Agricole 38
Countersigned and annotated on the back on the frame Lucien Coutaud 7 rue Antoine Chatin 14th
81 x 100 cm
Provenance :
- Lucien Coutaud Fund, Paris
- Private collection, France
Exhibitions :
- Coutaud, Oudot, Souverbie, Galerie Rive Gauche, Paris, from February 21 to March 26, 1941
- Lucien Coutaud, Œuvres anciennes et récentes de 1926 à 1951, Galerie Rive Gauche, Paris, from May 31 to June 19, 1951
- Retrospective Lucien Coutaud, Château-Musée, Cagnes-sur-Mer, from July 3 to September 30, 1965
- Retrospective Lucien Coutaud, Museum of Fine Arts, Menton, 1999
Literature :
- Lucien Coutaud 1904, in Les Cahiers d’Art, Documents, Encyclopédie Générale des Beaux-Arts aux XIXe et XXe siècles, number 32, ed. Pierre Cailler, Geneva, 1956, reproduced on p. 3
- Lucien Coutaud by Pierre Mazard, in Artistic review Jardin des Arts, n ° 100, March 1963, reproduced
- Lucien Coutaud by Pierre Mazard, ed. Pierre Cailler, Geneva, 1964, reproduced in color under the n ° 6
- Lucien Coutaud Le peintre de l’Éroticomagie by Christophe Dauphin, ed. Rafael de Surtis, Cordes-sur-Ciel, 2009, reproduced in color in the iconographic booklet between p. 98 and 99
- Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre de Lucien Coutaud, Tome 1, by Maryvonne Binder, Jean Binder and the Association Lucien Coutaud , ALC Éditions, Paris 2020, described and reproduced in color on p. 82
"La Machine Agricole dated 1938 is one of the most important paintings of this period {The Ornamental or Esoteric Period 1934-1939}. It has often been shown by the painter in his retrospectives. Imposing, invasive, we suspect its fragility when we notice that it is made of an assembly of cardboard boxes cut like the setting in which it is located. Perhaps this is the way of attempting to symbolically annihilate its murderous function vis-à-vis nature. A detail of this painting could evoke in a desired way the work of Max Ernst, as if Coutaud had trapped him. »Jean Binder
In 1936, Coutaud produced an important gouache entitled Le Printemps, in which we can already find this fantastic and dreamlike agricultural machine.
Lucien COUTAUD
LE PRINTEMPS, 1936
Gouache on panel
121 x 171 cm
Collection Fonds National d’Art Contemporain