Hey everyone, it’s that time of the week where I grace you with my presence! This time I have a real treat for all of you! I’m featuring an in-depth highlight of an amazing piece with an equally amazing provenance that has Bruneau & Co. extremely excited. Recently, we received a painted work by French born artist Jean Charlot from a gentleman who has had the piece in his family for a few generations. To start, the painting itself is an illustrative work on canvas akin to a mural depicting three angelic, round faced girls in the middle of a storybook forest. The piece has a charming nostalgic expression with its soft lines and color gradients reminiscent of books from childhood, an attractive quality that brings a sense of warmth making this painting so desirable.
The artist Jean Charlot was born to parents with Aztec heritage and studied at the prestigious Ecole de Beaux arts in Paris before joining the military during WWI. After the war, Charlot and his mother moved to Mexico where be expanded his career in Mexico City’s artistic scene, befriending famous Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jose Orozco during the height of Mexican muralist’s popularity within the United States. This success led to Charlot moving to America teaching fresco techniques in New York before settling down in Colorado Springs. Charlot taught and eventually became the head of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Art School, and later became a professor at the University of Hawaii. According to the current owners, the painting was acquired as a chimney decoration for Dean Hallie Flanagan Davis of Smith College in 1945. The painting was then gifted to her son and daughter in law, Frederic F. Flanagan Sr. and Mary Beckwith Flanagan, in 1956. Then in 1970, Mary Beckwith Flanagan gifted the painting to her daughter Hallie Flanagan Wolfe before it was finally gifted to the current owner, Frederic F. Flanagan Jr. in 2002. The provenance that was provided was backed up by a 2004 report conducted for Mr. Flanagan in 2004 in which CCT International Fine Art was able to access Jean Charlot’s collection information housed at the University of Hawaii library. The information provided by that report confirmed that the piece was done for Dean Hallie Flanagan Davis and provided the title “Malinches” for this previously untitled work. I know this was a hefty information filled blog for a single artist this week and I thank you for giving it a read! We don’t always get a provenance quite like this for a such a prolific artist and I hope you like “Malinches” as much as we do! If you have the winning bid, don’t forget this blog, I have all the info you need right here, and I don’t mind the views!
