Antonio Fasan, Homage to Matisse, oil on panel cm. 67x53

Antonio Fasan Padua, 1902 - Padua, 1985 Homage to Matisse Oil on panel, 67 × 53 cm. Signed and dated in pencil at upper right: Fasan 942 Back: painting signed and dated Fasan 937 depicting a large farmhouse; Handwritten label at lower right indicating: Antonio Fasan / Dimensions: 53 × 64 / Work: Homage to Matisse / Date: 1943 / Technique: oil on panel / Collection: (...) The painting The panel depicts an interior still life of extraordinary chromatic vibrancy: on a table covered with a red-and-white-striped tablecloth stands a vase decorated with flowers with white and yellow dotted petals - stylized orchids - while on the top is an open sketchbook with an illustration with an urban-portrait subject. In the background, occupying the entire wall, is a patterned wallpaper in yellow, red and blue with oriental decorative motifs alternating with moiré columns, in the full sense of Matissean taste. The composition is intentionally a long-distance dialogue with Henri Matisse, whose still lifes Fasan had studied extensively in the 1920s-particularly the Niçois series with striped tables, arabesque fabrics, and vases of flowers on sumptuous decorative backgrounds such as Vase of Flowers (1924, MFA Boston), Still Life on Table (1925, Philadelphia Museum of Art), and the Place Charles-Félix apartment paintings-masterpieces in which the French master dissolves spatial depth into an arabesque of pure colors and contrasting planes. Fasan's Homage takes up their compositional scheme with mastery and inventive freedom of its own. The date marked in pencil on the front (942, or 1942) and that on the label on the back (1943) suggest that the work was begun in 1942 and completed-or deemed final-in the following year. Notes back On the verso of the panel is a second autograph painting, signed and dated Fasan 937 (1937), depicting a large farmhouse, evidence of a common practice in early twentieth-century painting of reusing previously employed media. The number 25 visible in the upper left is probably a cataloging or exhibition number.