Rating and value of works, prints and paintings by Jacques Villon

Considered one of the most important painters of his time, Jacques Villon (1875-1963) is one of the great theorists of synthetic cubism. His value fluctuates but remains high overall on the auction market, with his works arousing a privileged infatuation on the part of collectors.

If you own a work by or based on the artist Jacques Villon and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will guide you. Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and provide you with a precise estimate of its value on the current market. Thereafter, if you wish to sell your work, we will direct you to the best possible arrangement to obtain the optimum price.

Artist's rating and value

A versatile artist who is mainly involved in synthetic cubism, Jacques Villon is a highly appreciated painter on the art market. Since the 2000s, his price has skyrocketed, making him one of the most sought-after artists on the international market, with French and American buyers alike. Villon's most sought-after works are his cubist canvases. His predominantly red Cubist composition L'Acrobate, dating from 1913, sold for 945,000€ in 2004 by Sotheby's, while it was estimated at between 411,000 and 575,400€. 

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

The artist's works and style

Villon's early career was heavily influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. At first, he made little use of the etching technique, producing copper engravings. Later, he would take part in the Fauvist movement without participating in the Salle VII scandal. It was during the birth of Cubism, all the phases of which he knew and experimented with, that Villon would reveal his artistic identity and theorize the stylistic language of Cubism.

Jacques Villon or the plastic translation of Cubism

Jacques Villon, whose real name was Gaston Émile Duchamp, was born in 1875 into a relatively well-off family with a strong interest in art. He was the eldest of a sibling group of artists that included the painter, sculptor and writer Marcel Duchamp, the painter Suzanne Duchamp, and the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon.

He engraved with the etching technique on small cookware, then on copper. His grandfather taught him several techniques, making him a cultured child open to the world. He studied law at the University of Paris, living with his brother Raymond, while frequenting Montmartre. Villon trained at the Beaux-Arts de Rouen on condition that he finished law school, and signed Jacques Villon to dissociate his identity as an artist from that of his brothers.

At the Beaux-Arts de Paris, he then studied under Fernand Cormon, before meeting Toulouse-Lautrec with whom he would work for around ten years producing cinema posters and press illustrations.

While continuing to engrave unceasingly, he helped organize the 1905 and 1906 Salons and took part in Fauvism. He isolates himself from Montmartre and creates the Section d'or, a group including Apollinaire, Picabia, Metzinger, R. Delaunay and Fernand Léger.  

In 1944, the galerie Louis Carré acquired his entire studio and devoted an exhibition to him : this was the start of his international success.

He created a graphic language of cubism and made an immense contribution to the artistic progress of his century.

An exhibition grouping his works and those of his siblings was organized in Rouen and then Paris in 1967, four years after his death in his Puteaux studio, at the age of 87.

Find out more about Jacques Villon's work

Understanding the different phases of Cubism

In the second half of the 19th century, a new artistic movement was born in France, which was very popular with the public: Impressionism. Many artists took part: Claude Monet was the leading figure, but another painter, Paul Cézanne, stood out from the crowd.

In fact, Cézanne produced many Impressionist canvases during his career, and is still considered one of the masters of this movement. However, he was to become a precursor of later trends. Firstly, Post-Impressionism, and secondly, Cubism, two movements far from unconnected.

Post-Impressionism, which in art history is estimated to have begun in 1910, actually encompasses many different techniques and styles: symbolism, pointillism, synthetism and the Nabis group. The main purpose of this name was to mark the end of Impressionism, which critics and theorists considered outdated at the time.

While it is traditionally said that Impressionism came to an end in 1910, Cézanne actually anticipated Cubism long before. In his painting Gardanne, dating from 1885, we can already easily discern a questioning of the perfect representation of reality and geometric forms.

Plans and perspectives are also turned upside down and totally called into question. All these observations made by Cézanne are at the origin of Cubism.

He reiterates his questioning in his canvas La montagne Sainte-Victoire vue de la carrière Bibemus, in 1897. His thinking had matured, the geometric shapes were less clear-cut, and the perspectives and planes of the painting were called more into question. 

Nevertheless, the first phase of (Cézannean) Cubism is thought to have taken place between 1908 and 1910. It was initiated by Picasso and Braque, who knew how to use the milestones set by Cézanne. They wanted to give autonomy to the canvas, and to stop treating two-dimensional volumes realistically.

The perceptual process then collapsed; the aim was to deconstruct it in order to better reconstruct and understand it. This is known as Analytical Cubism (1910-1912). This phase is characterized above all by experimentation, which almost led Braque and Picasso to abstraction.

In the end, it was by linking up with the different levels of meaning in reality and the structure of being in the world that the third phase of Cubism was able to unfold its full interest at Le Bateau-Lavoir : more aesthetic, more real, more comprehensible, synthetic Cubism appealed to other artists such as Juan Gris, who went on to collaborate with Braque and Picasso.

Villon was to study and experiment closely with all these phases, without actually instigating them. Taking an interest in another aspect of this revolution, he would insist on the line and its mechanization, as well as on the facture of his works, which he wanted to be soft and calm.

Jacques Villon's contribution to Cubism and its overcoming  

Apollinaire, close to Braque and Picasso, plays a fundamental role in the history of the movement, and helps Jacques Villon to conduct his research into overcoming Cubism. Without subscribing to the static, icy approach of analytical cubism (cf. Picasso, Portrait d'Ambroise Vollard), he sought the order and discipline that would enable each colored plane to come alive and find its place in the composition, convinced that he had understood how the eye integrated the material dimension of the work.

He breaks down and recomposes the visual structure of his supports by organizing them into pyramids, four in all : two diagonals connected at the corners allow the subject to take shape.

His approach is rigorous and Cartesian, imbued with the scientific and neurochemical advances of his time, leaving absolutely nothing to chance.

"What appealed to me about Cubism was the search for creation, the discipline that leads to the deliberate, ordered painting, where there is no more room for chance ". - Jacques Villon

To sum up, Jacques Villon's ambition was to translate movement plastically, by breaking down the surface into colored planes. Relentlessly using circles and chromatic charts, he created a graphic language leading to the mechanization of the stroke, something no other cubist had really sought before him.

Much less famous than Juan Gris, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, many artists would follow in his wake : Maurice Estève, Jean Bazaine, Léon Gischia, Alfred Manessier ... On his death, Jean Cassou would emphasize his crucial role in the foundation and influence in art history of the cubist movement.

Although little used in the Cubist repertoire, religious iconography was to play an important role in Jacques Villon's work. In addition to the stained glass windows he created for Metz Cathedral, which drew on all his scientific and pictorial theories, the artist used this repertoire on numerous occasions in paintings and engravings.

His signature

Not all of Jacques Villon's works are signed. What's more, there are many copies : that's why expertise is important.

Expertise your property

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