Théodore Strawinsky’s first solo exhibition was held at the important Quatre-Chemins Gallery in Paris, on 3-16 June, 1927. The following year, he repeated the operation and displayed his Venus and Cupid. This study of a mythological nude shows the painter’s affinity with the return-to-tradition trend whose defenders included André Derain, one of the young painter’s masters. Philippe Kaenel

The identity of these modern water-nymphs is irrelevant! In the 1930s Theodore was looking for a way (as were many other artists) to get closer to tradition. The woman in a bathing suit is posing on the beach with two other women, like a modern Grace. For the anecdote, this was painted just three years prior to the introduction of paid holidays in France. Philippe Kaenel

As the several titles of this oil painting indicate, the work combines different elements and registers: a nude (the painter’s wife), an indoor (or genre) scene, part of a landscape, and in the foreground a semblance of a still life. The lemon is there to play with the complementary colours, while the apples evoke a still life (Cézanne) as well as the femininity of the long-haired and bare-breasted Eve. Philippe Kaenel

Strawinsky had always been fascinated by the circus. Clowns, musicians, ballerinas and animal tamers often peopled his watercolours, and his illustrations for Le Cirque by Ramuz, published in 1936. His models and contemporaries, including Picasso, Rouault, Vlaminck, Léger and André Lhote, his workshop master, were all fascinated by his imagery. Philippe Kaenel