Among the very last compositions Henri Rousseau painted, The Waterfall is typical of the large-scale jungle scenes for which he gained renown in the 20th century. A self-taught artist who worked by day as a customs agent until the age of 49, Rousseau never set foot outside of France. Instead, he learned about the flora and fauna of far-away places through visits to Paris botanical gardens and zoos as well as in popular books. As a result, his landscapes often reflect how Parisians at the time imagined France’s colonial empires in Africa and the Americas. Here, he created a secluded vignette of two dark-skinned figures and a pair of deer at a stream surrounded by dense foliage. As we look upon them, seemingly undetected or just noticed by the deer, we encounter a fictional scene that reflects 20th-century European ideas about escaping modernity and returning to more peaceful origins.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Wilhelm Uhde, Henri Rousseau (Dusseldorf, 1914), pl. 42.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Modern Paintings in the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial from the Birch-Bartlett Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1926), pp. 4–5 and 51 (ill.).
R. M. F., “Cézanne, Rousseau, Picasso,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 20:5 (May 1926), pp. 62 and 64 (ill.).
Forbes Watson, “A Note on the Birch-Bartlett Collection,” The Arts 9 (June 1926), pp. 310 and 312 (ill.).
Phipippe Soupault, Henri Rousseau, Le Douanier (Paris: Éditions des Quatre Chemins, 1927), pl. 36, as Paysage, Exotique.
Morton Dauwen Zabel, “An American Gallery of Modern Painting,” Art and Archeology 26:6 (December 1928), pp. 228 (ill.), 233, as Landscape. La Cascade.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Modern Paintings the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial from the Birch-Bartlett Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1929), pp. 10–11 and 57 (ill.).
W. M. M., “A Painting by ‘Papa’ Rousseau,” The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art 17:1 (January 1930), p. 8.
Walter J. Sherwood, “The Famous Birch Bartlett Collection,” Chicago Visitor (October 1932), p. 40.
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), p. 169.
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture Lent from American Collections, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933), p. 52, cat. 369.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “The Century of Progress Exhibition of the Fine Arts,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 27:4 (April–May 1933), p. 70.
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1934), p. 49, cat 322.
A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1935), p. 31.
“Chicago Art Institute,” Life 11:10 (September 8, 1941), n. p. (ill.).
Daniel Catton Rich, Henri Rousseau, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1942), 64–65 and 69 (ill.).
John Fabian Kienitz, “Henri Rousseau,” Art In America 30:2 (April 1942), p. 123 (ill.).
Roch Grey, Henri Rousseau (Paris: Galerie René Drouin, 1943), no. 102 (ill.), as Les Antilopes dans la Forêt Exotique.
Alfred Griot, “The Centenary of Henri Rousseau,” Art Quarterly 7:3 (Summer 1944), pp. 206 and 216, fig. 1.
Daniel Catton Rich, Henri Rousseau, second edition (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1946), pp. 64, 65, and 69 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, Modern Paintings the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial from the Birch Bartlett Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1946), pp. 40–41, and 59 (ill.).
An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1948), p. 37.
Wilhelm Uhde, Five Primitive Masters, trans. by Ralph Thompson (New York: The Quadrangle Press, 1949), p. 37 (ill.).
XXV Biennale di Venizia: Catalogo, exh. cat. (Venice: Alfieri Editore, 1950), p. 235, cat. 20.
“5 Stars for Fall,” Art News 50:7 (November 1951), p. 18.
James Fitzsimmons, “Henri Rousseau: Very Good but Very Human,” The Art Digest 26:4 (November 15, 1951), p. 18.
Lo Duca, Henri Rousseau dit le Douanier (Paris: Les Éditions du Chêne, 1951), p. 12, pl. IV, as Les Antilopes dans la Forêt Exotique and La Cascade.
Masterpieces in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1952) (ill.), as The Waterfall, n.d.
A Brief Guide to the Collections (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1956), p. 36.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 406.
Jean Bouret, Henri Rousseau (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1961), pp. 245 (ill.) and 263, cat. 228, as La cascade, The Waterfall.
Dora Vallier, Henri Rousseau (Cologne: M. DuMont Schauberg, 1961), no. 158 (ill.), as La cascade. Der kleine Wasserfall.
Vratislav Effenberger, Henri Rousseau (Praque: Státní nakladatelství krásné literatury aumení, 1963), p. 66, pl. 39.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Department of Museum Education, Comments on Selected Paintings in the Collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, Preliminary Edition (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1965), pp. 63–64.
Carla Lonzi, Rousseau (Milan: Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1966; reprint 1978), n.p. (ill.), pl. XI.
Instituto de Arte de Chicago (El Mundo de los Museos) (Buenos Aires: Editorial Codex, 1967), pp. 13 and 67, fig. 4, no. 49.
Giovanni Artieri and Dora Vallier, L’opera completa di Rousseau il Doganiere (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), pl. LVII, pp. 112 and 113, fig. 251.
Dora Vallier, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Henri Rousseau (Paris: Flammarion, 1970), pl. LVII, pp. 114 (fig. 251) and 115.
Lise and Oto Bihalji-Merin, Leben und Werk des Malers Henri Rousseau (Dresden: Veb Verlag der Kunst, 1971), pl. 58.
David Larkin (editor), Henri Rousseau (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), no. 36 (ill.).
Modest Morariu, Douanier Rousseau, trans. by Richard Hillard (London: Abbey Library, 1975), n. p., pl. 61.
Carolyn Keay, Henri Rousseau: Le Douanier (New York: Rizzoli, 1976), pp. 170–171 and 184, fig. 79.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), pp. 270 and 286 (ill.).
A. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth-Century European Paintings (Chicago, 1980), p. 68, no. 3G1.
Yann le Pichon, The World of Henri Rousseau, trans. by Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Viking Press, 1982), pp. 161 (ill.), 283, fig. 161.1.
Cornelia Stabenow, Henri Rousseau: Die Dschungelbilder (Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 1984), pp. 40–1 (ill.), 59, 68–9 (ill.), 80, cat. 21.
Henry Certigny, Le Douanier Rousseau en Son Temps, vol. II (Tokyo: Bunkazai Kenkyujyo, 1984), pp. 692–693, nos. 319 (ill.).
Eveline Schlumberger, “Jungle de Reve,” Connaissance des Arts 391 (September 1984), pp. 64–65 (ill.).
Richard R. Brettell, “The Bartletts and the Grande Jatte: Collecting Modern Painting in the 1920s,” Museum Studies 12:2 (1986), pp. 111.
“The Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection,” Museum Studies 12:2 (1986), pp. 223 and 230, no. 20 (ill.).
James N. Wood, Treasures of 19th-and 20th-Century Painting: The Art Institute of Chicago (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), p. 199 (ill.).
Werner Schmalenbach, Henri Rousseau: Dreams of the Jungle (Munich: Prestel, 1998), pp. 46–47 (ill.).
Christopher Green and Frances Morris (eds.), Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris, exh. cat. (London: Tate Modern, 2005), pp. 37, 41, 42, fig. 32, 45, 111, 116, and 223, cat. 23.
Joseph J. Rishel, “Arcadia 1900,” Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia Exh. cat (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2012), p. 94, p. 96, fig. 116.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, American Sources of Modern Art, March 10–31, 1933, not in cat.
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture Lent from American Collections, June 1–November 1, 1933, p. 52, cat. 369.
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–November 1, 1934, p. 49, cat. 322.
Pittsburgh, Penn., Carnegie Institute, A Survey of French Painting, April 2–May 14, 1936, n. p., cat. 40.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Henri Rousseau, January 22–February 23, 1942, pp. 64–5 and 69 (ill.); traveled to New York, Museum of Modern Art, March 17–May 3, 1942.
Venice, XXV Biennale di Venizia, June–October 1950, p. 235, cat. 20.
London, Tate Modern, Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris, November 3, 2005–February 5, 2006, pp. 37, 41, 42, fig. 32, 45, 111, 116, and 223, cat. 23; traveled to Paris, Grand Palais, March 13–June 19, 2006 and Washington D. C., National Gallery of Art, July 16–October 15, 2006.
Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Le Douanier Rousseau. L’innocence archaique, March 21, 2016–July 17, 2016; traveled to Prague, Narodni Galerie, Sept. 15, 2016–Jan. 15, 2017 (Paris only).
Alphonse Kann (1870–1948), Paris [Vallier 1970]. Sold by George Bernheim, Paris, to Frederick C. Bartlett (1873–1953), Chicago, Mar. 1926 [Brettell 1986]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, Mar. 1926.
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