Henri Hayden, Landscape With The Church

HENRI HAYDEN
LANDSCAPE WITH THE CHURCH

HENRI HAYDEN
Warszawa 1883 – 1970 Paris
Pen and black ink on paper, signed and dated "HAYDEN 42"
29.5 x 47.5 cm / 11.4 x 18.5 inches,  with frame 66 x 79 cm / 26 x 31.1 inches

PROVENANCE
France, private collection

Henryk Hayden (born Henryk Hayden‑Wurcel) stands as one of the foremost representatives of the École de Paris. Emerging from an old Warsaw Jewish family—with his parents envisioning a future in the family trading business—he instead devoted himself to art. His early academic training at the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute was succeeded by studies at the School of Fine Arts, where he joined the workshop of Konrad Krzyzanowski, a leading figure of Polish Symbolism whose method, infused with the decorative impulses of Edvard Munch, profoundly shaped Hayden’s technique.
By 1907, a fully formed painter, Hayden relocated to Paris and seamlessly integrated into the vibrant Polish expatriate community. His early Parisian experience was enriched by an association with Władysław Ślewiński—a close friend of Paul Gauguin and a prominent representative of the Pont‐Aven school—which further refined his artistic manner. A pivotal moment came with his “discovery” of Cezanne, a revelation that marked his stylistic evolution from decorative symbolism toward Cubism.
Hayden’s engagement with the painters of the “new style”—including Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Gris, and notably the Cubist ideologue Anre Salmon—firmly anchored him within Paris’s avant‑garde circles. This integration culminated in a significant contract with Galerie de L'Effort Moderne, managed by Léonce Rosenberg, and ushered in a period of exceptional success during the interwar years. Solo exhibitions at the Leopold Zborowski galleries (1923), Bernheim (1928), and Drouant (1933) further attest to his rising acclaim, while his fruitful collaboration with Jadwiga Zak, the widow of the early Cubist master Eugeniusz Zak and a celebrated promoter of Eastern European and Latin American avant‑garde artists (including Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, and Jules Pascin), cemented his reputation.
During the Second World War, while many of his contemporaries remained in Paris, Hayden chose exile—first relocating to Auvergne, where he encountered Robert Delaunay, and later, in 1943, finding refuge in Roussillon in Vaucluse alongside the writer Samuel Beckett. After the war, he returned to Paris to open his own studio, gradually setting aside his Cubist approach in favor of a more streamlined decorativeism.
Throughout his career, Hayden maintained a keen interest in the landscape genre. Early works—such as the cubist renderings in “The Factory” (1911, Leeds Art Gallery) and “View at Saint Lunaire” (1911, York Art Gallery)—exemplify his mastery in handling expansive object planes and creating monumental compositions. The drawing “Landscape with a Church” (1942), executed during a turbulent period marked by his flight from occupied Paris and subsequent wanderings in southern France, reflects a “conservative evolution” in his style. Here, mature Cubism gracefully yields to the aesthetics of late Impressionism, with the artist’s ability to generalize the visible manifesting in large, sweeping landscape planes punctuated by the unmistakable presence of an ancient church—perhaps an homage to the enduring influence of Paul Cézanne.