Jean Crotti (24 April 1878 – 30 January 1958) was a French painter. Crotti was born in

Bulle Bulle (; ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Gruyère (district), Gruyère in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Fribourg (canton), Fribourg in Switzerland. In January 2006 Bulle incorporated the formerly inde ...

, Fribourg, Switzerland. He first studied in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany at the School of Decorative Arts, then at age 23 moved to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to study art at the ''

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

''. Initially he was influenced by

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

, then by

Fauvism Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

and

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

. Around 1910 he began to experiment with

Orphism Orphism is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who descended into the Greek underworld and returned ...

, an offshoot of

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, and a style that would be enhanced by his association in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

with

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

and

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typography, typographist closely associated with Dada. When consid ...

. A refugee from

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, he looked to America as a place where he could live and develop his art. In New York, he shared a studio with Marcel Duchamp and met his sister,

Suzanne Duchamp Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti (20 October 1889 – 11 September 1963) was a French Dadaist painter, collagist, sculptor, and draughtsman. Her work was significant to the development of Paris Dada and modernism and her drawings and collages explore f ...

. She was part of the

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

movement in which Crotti would become involved. In 1916, he exhibited Orphist-like paintings, several of which had religious titles that also included his ''Portrait of Marcel Duchamp'' and his much discussed ''Les Forces MÈcaniques de l'amour Mouvement'', created by using found objects. In the fall of 1916, Crotti separated from his wife, Yvonne Chastel, and returned to Paris. He had begun a relationship with Suzanne Duchamp that would culminate in his divorce in 1919 and immediate marriage to Suzanne. An artist in her own right, she would greatly influence Jean Crotti's painting. In 1920, he produced one of his best known works, a portrait of

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

. He participated in the 1925 ''Exposition International'' in Paris and the International Exhibition of Modern Art at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

in 1926–1927. Over the ensuing years, he would create numerous paintings and be the subject for several solo exhibitions at major galleries in England, France, Germany, and the United States. Crotti died in Paris. Jean Crotti's heirs donated his personal papers to the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, where they can be consulted by researchers. In 2011, Francis M. Naumann Fine Art showed an exhibition, ''Inhabiting Abstraction'', including important examples from every significant phase and development in the realm of abstraction that Crotti explored, as well as one-of-a-kind works such as "Parterre de reve" (1920), in which he framed his painting palette and then signed it.

References

External links

Website of Jean Crotti (by Jean Carlo Bertoli)

Jean Crotti papers, 1913-1973, bulk 1913-1961
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Jean Crotti, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crotti, Jean 1878 births 1958 deaths Académie Julian alumni 19th-century French painters French male painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists Swiss emigrants to France 19th-century Swiss painters Swiss male painters 20th-century Swiss painters Dada French people of Italian descent Art Nouveau painters People from Bulle Swiss people of Italian descent Dadaists 20th-century Swiss artists 19th-century French male artists 19th-century Swiss male artists 20th-century Swiss male artists