YVES-JEAN COMMÈRE (1920-1986) Yves Montand and Simone Signoret in The Witches of Salem Original canvas Titled, signed and dated lower right: 1956 Height 130 cm - Width 95 cm This composition by Yves Jean Commère is in the artist's characteristic theatrical and figurative vein. The couple represented, Yves Montand (1921-1991) and Simone Signoret (1921-1985), refers to their performance in Les Sorcières de Salem, a 1957 film adaptation of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, first performed on Broadway in 1953 and brought to the French stage in the same decade. The film depicts a wave of witchcraft accusations that plunges 17th-century Puritan Salem into mass hysteria and unfair trials. The serious attitude of the characters, the frontality of the female figure and the protective posture of the man convey the moral tension inherent in the work. Commère favors a vibrant pictorial material, where impasto and underlying drawing interact, while the muted palette of grays, blacks and ochres creates an austere atmosphere that echoes the Puritan universe of the drama. With this pictorial transposition, the artist goes beyond cinematic illustration to establish the Montand-Signoret couple as timeless tragic figures. The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris holds a lithograph by the artist lithograph of very similar composition (ref. AME 138). This work can also be compared to one of the artist's Jean Commère's work is in keeping with the artist's characteristic theatrical and figurative vein. Offered by an anonymous donor.