Albert Coste
(Marseille, France 1895 - 1985)

Abstract Violin, c.1930s

gouache on card
signed lower right with monogram ‘AC’

27 x 22 cm.
(framed 31.5 x 26.5 cm.)
in a period silvered frame

This art deco abstract of cellos by Albert Costes (1895-1985) was either painted in Paris where he honed his craft, or Aix-en-Provence where he settled…

As a boy, the artist attended classes at both the Marseille School of Fine Art and the Music Conservatoire (as a cellist), but a tram accident in 1916 led to the amputation of his all-important left index and middle fingers... As you see here, his love of string instruments clearly never left him.

Over the course of his long career, Costes participated in numerous group exhibitions and Salons in Paris and Aix-en-Provence, where he met Maurice Denis among others and was taken under the wing of Albert Gleizes. In this environment he thoroughly embraced the general spirit of post-war French abstraction, and amen to that.