Study of Horses and Knights - SOLD

Study of Horses and Knightsis an interesting preparatory drawing realized by the important French illustrator and painter Adrienne Jouclard.

The state of preservation is very good, except for a small rip of the paper on the higher left margin and a fold on the higher right corner. The left margin presents a serration because the paper was torn from a sketchbook. In the drawing, in pencil, there are indications on the colors for the definitive artwork, whilst on the higher right and lower left there are, in diagonal, two signaturesof the artist in blue ink, probably written in the aftermath of the work’s creation.

Adrienne Jouclard (1882-1972) spent her life between Versailles and Rupt de Mad, two sites that have always been her sources of great inspiration. She attended the School of Decorative Arts in Paris. She emerged rapidly from the classical tradition to pursue a more personal style. Influenced by the historical avant-gardes of the early 20^thcentury, she was interested in the representation of movement and thus of sports: gymnastics, boxing, hockey, rugby, horse races. Many of her artworks are preserved at the National Museum of Sport in Paris. During her long career, she exhibited her works in important group and solo shows and obtained important results and recognitions from public institutions.

The drawing represents, in a draft, a series of studies of persons and animals in movement, among which horses and knights, the artist’s favored subject. The beautiful and dynamic drawing seems almost an abstract artwork in which the represented subject is irrelevant compared to the balance among the tensions expressed by the masses in movement drawn all over the paper. An important artwork, telling much about the history of 20^th-century art.