"...J'ai en train plusieurs toiles et il faut qu'elles sèchent, et les envoyer, et encadrer..."

Autograph letter dated and signed by Félix Vallotton, 17 lines in black ink.
Fold marks inherent to postal handling.
With painters Henri Lebasque and René Piot, Félix Vallotton traveled from June 7 to 23, 1917 to Champagne and Argonne to make sketches and develop his ideas for paintings. Despite difficulties and delays of which he complains, he would manage to propose four of his canvases to the Exhibition of War Painters organized by the Army Museum: "Ruins at Souain", "The Church of Souain in Silhouette and Crater at Souain, Evening", "The Bolante Plateau, the Gruerie Wood, the Paris Kiln", "Fire on the First Boche Lines and Senegalese Soldiers at Camp Bailly"
Subject to very brief deadlines by the French State, Félix Vallotton rails against the lack of time granted to him: "Lebasque me dit que le délai d'envoi expire le 20 de ce mois; C'est bien court ! N'y aurait-il pas moyen de prolonger un peu..." (Lebasque tells me that the submission deadline expires on the 20th of this month; That's very short! Wouldn't there be a way to extend it a little...)
because his canvases are not quite finished: "J'ai en train plusieurs toiles et il faut qu'elles sèchent, et les envoyer, et encadrer. S'il est possible de gagner ne fut-ce que quelques jours cela me rendrait grand service..." (I have several canvases in progress and they need to dry, and be sent, and framed. If it's possible to gain even just a few days that would be of great service to me...)