Artwork Page for Night Café

Details / Information for Night Café

Night Café

c. 1923

Louis Marcoussis

(French, 1883–1941)
Culture
France, 20th century
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
Framed: 87.3 x 105.7 x 7 cm (34 3/8 x 41 5/8 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 70.5 x 88.1 cm (27 3/4 x 34 11/16 in.)
Credit Line
Given in loving memory of W. Chave and Mary Tyler McCracken by their daughters 2006.139
Public Domain
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.
Location
223 20th Century Avant-Garde
Print
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Did You Know?

The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire urged the artist to change his name to Marcoussis, after a French village south of Paris. The artist was born Louis Casimir Ladislas Markus in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to Paris in 1903.

Description

Following Cubist principles, this painting depicts a table from multiple perspectives, providing different views of various objects simultaneously. Louis Casimir Ladislas Markus was born in Warsaw, Poland, into a Jewish family that had converted to Catholicism. In 1903, he moved to Paris where he met poet Guillaume Apollinaire and artists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. He then began experimenting with Cubism. Also of Polish descent, Apollinaire had changed his own name and urged the artist to change his name to Marcoussis after a French village. The yellow hot air balloon and the French flag glimpsed out of the window pay homage to the artist’s adopted homeland.
A horizontally oriented, geometric oil painting depicts an abstracted still life on a reddish-brown table. In the center, a green bottle and bowl of fruit sit before a white arch framing a dark blue sky and yellow orb. To our left, a coiled rope rests against a textured green panel. To the right, a red patterned curtain hangs near a French flag. Wood-grain and lattice patterns texture the fractured, multi-layered composition.

Night Café

c. 1923

Louis Marcoussis

(French, 1883–1941)
France, 20th century

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