Series - Pianos in Art

I'm 7 years old in this summer photo, playing the piano with Duke Ellington, which gives me the idea for a series on pianos.

Excerpt from my book La Saga Maeght, chapter "The Minotaur watches over us."
"Miró and I walk along the path that leads to the Foundation. Grandpa is there, among jazz musicians sitting on a terrace with their instruments and our grand Steinway, which has been brought outside. A black giant strikes chords. Grandpa introduces me and here I am, sitting beside Duke Ellington, playing a duet. Then the Duke improvises a memorable 'Blues for Miró.' Miró listens attentively, and I stay by his side. At the end of the piece, Miró explains to me that, even though the notes are so few, like colors, their combinations are infinite. To help me understand even better – I am only seven years old – he evokes Prévert who, with the same words as everyone, as myself, gives life to unique poems. This discussion will forever change my life. The source is simple, genius makes all the difference."

Nicolas Poussin, "Saint Cecilia", 1627.

One of my favorite painters; there are always several stories, several readings in his works. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, "The Music Lesson", 1770.

Emile Antoine Bourdelle, "Isadora Duncan with Walter Rummel at the Piano", 1909.
After attending her performance of Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris, Antoine Bourdelle became fascinated by Isadora Duncan's art. He began a cycle of drawings celebrating dance and music, represented respectively by Isadora Duncan and the German pianist Walter Rummel (1887-1953). Based in Paris since 1908, Rummel was one of the most important promoters of Debussy's music; between 1918 and 1920, he formed a romantic and artistic relationship with Isadora marked by profound aesthetic exaltation.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1915, "Franz Botho Graef," this archaeologist and classical art historian (1857-1917) inspired many of Kirchner's portraits. A friend of the artist's father, he was among the defenders of modern art. He taught at the University of Jena from 1904 to 1917. The Kunstverein (art association) of Jena received more than 250 prints by Kirchner in memory of Botho Graef (1857-1917).

William Chase, "The Keynote" by William Chase, 1915. Chase was born in Indiana; he established his own school in New York, the "Chase School" (now Parsons), after teaching for a few years at the Art Students League.

Henri Matisse, in 1917, created "The Music Lesson". This painting features Matisse's children: Pierre at the piano next to Marguerite, and Jean in the armchair. Amélie Matisse (née Parayre), mother of Pierre and Jean, is sitting in the garden. What freedom for Matisse to return to the subject, to color… This is exactly the same composition as the previous painting, which is in the collections of the Barnes Foundation.

"Girl at the Piano," by Georges Valmier, 1920.

Salvador Dali, "Pharmacist pulling up with extreme caution the lid of a grand piano", 1936.
Totally surreal, and I must admit a magnificent painting, even though I'm not a fan of Dali's paintings, while I adore what he wrote, his interviews, his eccentricity and especially his intelligence. Salvador Dali was curious about everything, and one of his interests was the scientific world. His library contains about a hundred books - annotated in the margin and commented by his hand - on different scientific aspects: physics, quantum mechanics, the origin of life, evolution, mathematics... The 1930s were marked by double images and optical illusions, a passion that would never leave Dali's work, just like the immense, empty landscapes that evoke dreams.

Norman Rockwell, "The Piano Tuner", 1947.
Rockwell is primarily known for his cover illustrations for "The Saturday Evening Post" magazine, a highly influential publication aimed at the American middle class. It was founded in 1821.
Rockwell contributed to The Post for about fifty years, and his illustrations reflect the social and technological changes of the era.
"The Piano Tuner" depicts a young boy fascinated by an elderly piano tuner. Rockwell hired an eight-year-old boy (Andrew Brinkerhoff Smith) for the painting, for which he received $5. However, on New Year's Eve 1947, Rockwell gave the painting to Smith's parents.

Nicolas de Staël, "The Piano", 1955.

Nicolas de Staël, "The Grand Concert, The Orchestra", 1955.
One of the artist's most intense and immense canvases - 350 x 600 cm, painted in Antibes, where the painter experienced a period of hyperactivity since autumn 1954, producing 147 canvases and sketching a multitude of drawings.
Musical instruments, notably, in ballpoint pen or felt-tip pen, reflecting his permanent research... "The more you understand that the explosion, for me, is everything, like opening a window, the more you will understand that I cannot stop it by finishing things more," he wrote on February 17, 1955, to the Parisian gallerist Jacques Dubourg, who commissioned an exhibition.
In his house along the ramparts, 40-year-old de Staël was in fact preparing three exhibitions. For Dubourg, for England, and for the Antibes Museum, scheduled for summer 1955.
"I am slow, I am not Picasso." Staël confided this to his friend René Char in one of his innumerable letters. "Behind on life," as Char described him, he was exhausting himself. On March 16, he wrote to Jacques Dubourg: "I do not have the strength to complete my paintings." The following night, he threw himself off his terrace.

Pablo Picasso, "The Piano", after Velazquez, 1957.
It wouldn't surprise me if Javier Mariscal had seen this painting at the Barcelona Museum, as he seems to have been greatly influenced in his creations by the dog in this painting.

My grandfather, always elegant, alongside Duke Ellington, in the gardens of the Maeght Foundation, one summer day in 1966.

Robert Combas, "The Pianist" 1989.

Salvador Dali, "The House Without Windows", 1946.

An exceptional art object, designed by Aki Kuroda for Pleyel.

The book La Saga Maeght by Yoyo Maeght, with dedication. Link here