Patrick Henry Bruce

After a few years of formative study in New York, Patrick Henry Bruce relocated to Paris in 1903, where he remained for over 30 years. Through Gertrude and Leo Stein, the famous American collectors living in Paris, he met Henri Matisse (French, 1869 - 1954) and absorbed the lessons of the Paris school of modernists. The palette of Peinture/Nature Morte (Painting/Still Life) is testament to Bruce’s exposure to Matisse, as well as to his keen interest in contemporary color theory.

The canvas is one of 25 related still-life paintings Bruce created from 1917 through 1930, all inspired by objects in his Paris apartment. Emerging from the collage-like combinations of broad, flat areas of color is a horizontal plane abstracted from one of the artist’s four antique tables. On the table appear drinking glasses, mortars and pestles from the artist’s collection of African artifacts, draftsman’s tools, and wooden moldings and magnets used to secure drawings to a table or wall.