The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of September 23, 2023

The Pink Cloud

c. 1896

Henri-Edmond Cross

(French, 1856–1910)

France, 19th century

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 54.6 x 61 cm (21 1/2 x 24 in.)

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift 2020.106

Location

222 Impressionism & Post-Impressionism

Fun Fact

Drawn to the beauty of the landscape and the climate that improved his chronic rheumatism from its state in Paris, Cross moved to the south of France where he made a home with his wife, Irma Clare, in Saint-Clair, a small village near the coast.

Description

Henri-Edmond Cross adopted the Neo-Impressionist technique of applying small dots or dashes of pure color in 1891. Around 1896, as seen in this view of a spectacular cloud, he shifted toward larger, more emphatic brushstrokes, often surrounded by areas of white to achieve greater color intensity. His daring use of pure, abstract color and decorative design significantly influenced Henri Matisse and the French Fauves (Wild Beasts). Beyond exploring scientific principles of color theory, Cross was an anarchist who associated the poetic beauty of abstract design with the values of an ideal, utopian society.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signed lower left: henri Edmond Cross

Provenance
October 28, 1921
(Hotel Drouot, Paris, France, posthumous Atelier Henri-Edmond Cross sale, October 28, 1921, lot 25, purchased from the artist's estate) 1
November 9, 2000
(Christie's New York, NY, November 9, 2000, lot 160, sold to Harry Krampf) 2
2000-?
(Harry Krampf Collection, Paris, France)
(Galerie Hopkins-Custot, Paris, France, sold to Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley)
-2020
Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art
2020-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

1 Sold as “Nuages Rouges” (Red Clouds), 60 x 54.
2 According to documentation provided by Galerie Hopkins-Custot in the curatorial file.
Citations
Compin, Isabelle. H.E. Cross. Paris, France: Quatre Chemins, 1964. Reproduced: p. 151, no. 60
Mettais, Valérie. Histoire vivante de l'impressionnisme. Paris : Hazan, 2021. Reproduced, P. 162
Brown, Heather Lemonedes. “Color, Sensation, and Memory: Themes in the Keithleys’ gift and promised gift.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 62, no. 3, 2022: Cover, 4-7. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 5; Reproduced: P. 12.
Exhibition history

Societe des artistes independents. Paris, France (April-May 1897).

Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 11, 2022-January 8, 2023).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.106