Lot n° 365
Estimation :
180 - 200
EUR
Theo P. Wagner (active ca. 1890-1900) - Lot 365
Theo P. Wagner (active ca. 1890-1900)
The Clown Lodge. 1897. Lithograph. 95 x 330. Johnson 158. Printed in colors. Very nice and fresh proof on chine volant, signed in pencil. All margins. Edition at 100 proofs for the Album of original prints of the Galerie Vollard. Ex-coll. H. M. Petiet (Lugt 5031).
Theo P. Wagner was a mysterious artist who worked at the Molier Circus, where he performed a trapeze act with the Duc de la Rochefoucauld. He attracted the attention of Huysmans who devoted several lines to him in Some (1889). The author had noticed a watercolor by the artist at the Salon des Indépendants in 1884. It depicted clowns at the Cirque Molier. Wagner, whose biography is unknown, also exhibited at the Salon de la Rose-Croix (1892). He produced a small number of lithographs.
"Signac tells us more about the character. He tells us that he was a 'muscular athlete, trapeze partner of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. Together they did a number at the concert in the rue de Lyon and this Wagner broke a leg. [...] Both of them now work at Molier's. [...] Theo Wagner was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts as well as the acrobat Duke. Seurat knew them there. Theo, not very wealthy, posed the nude - superb - one week, and the following week, in the same studio, conscientiously painted the model who had replaced him. In the meantime, he sold cufflinks under doors and, in the company of Sali and others, walked naked in the forest of Fontainebleau. Was a regular at the first "Chat Noir". The studio where he did the watercolor Le Cirque Molier was located at 13 rue Ravignan...', in other words, on the site of the Bateau-Lavoir, before it bore this illustrious name." (J. Bailly-Herzberg, Dictionnaire de l'Estampe en France 1830-1950, Paris, Flammarion, 1985, p. 341).
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