Accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi and Mr. Claude Tayag confirming the authenticity of this lot

ABOUT THE WORK

Having settled in France where he studied at the Academie de Montmartre in 1926, Macario Vitalis is most known for his paintings of pre-war Parisian life rendered in his distinct post-impressionist style. If the French impressionists were concerned with accurately depicting the transient qualities of light, the post-impressionists the likes of Vitalis, on the other hand, deviated from such accuracy through an expressive distortion of forms and deliberate use of unnatural light and color. The lot at hand is a curious piece bearing traces of an impressionist style that seems a precursor to the fullblown post-impressionism that would manifest more blatantly in the later works of the artist. It renders a scenery in Puteaux, a Paris suburb where Vitalis had set up a studio while helping out at his friend and fellow artist Camile Renault’s theater-restaurant, the very place where he would also meet Pablo Picasso. Painted in 1941, it is among Vitalis’s earlier works painted just before the German occupation, capturing in spontaneously quaint strokes the fleeting light of pre-war Paris. (Pie Tiausas)