Nicolas de Staël – Original photograph by Denise Colomb.

Nicolas de Staël (1914.1955)

Original photograph by Denise Colomb.

Vintage silver gelatin print (1954) on Agfa Brovira paper.

Size: 18.50 x 28.50 cm. Minor marginal defects.

An extraordinary print depicting the artist full-length, gazing into the camera with all his beauty, in his studio on rue Gauguet in Paris, a few months before his tragic death.

___________________________________________

Denise Colomb wrote about this session:

“ It was the most powerful encounter of my career. Memories made even more poignant after the tragedy, memories that have remained vivid. It was both a confrontation and a moment of complicity. He pulled out a large canvas, of which I only saw the frame, and which I suspect was one of his famous paintings with bottles. The effort had tired him. I took a picture of de Staël with his arms hanging loosely, as if he were exhausted. Then, he crossed his arms, defied me, defied the world. I held my photograph. I shot him from a low angle to accentuate his tall figure. What an emotional experience.”

Exhausted by the extreme tension that painting provoked in him, and desperate over the love rejected by Jeanne Mathieu, Nicolas de Staël took his own life on March 16, 1955, by throwing himself into the void from the terrace of his home in Antibes.

He left three letters, one to his friend Jacques Dubourg: "I don't have the strength to finish my paintings. Thank you for everything you have done for me. From the bottom of my heart. Nicolas.", to Jean Bauret: "  Dear Jean, if you have the time, would you be willing, in case any exhibition of my paintings is organized, to say what needs to be done to ensure they are seen. Thank you for everything ", and a final letter to his daughter, Anne de Staël, then 13 years old.