Considered one of the most important Post Impressionists, Maximilien Luce was born to working-class parents in mid-19th century Paris. At the age of 14 he began a career as a commercial engraver, which he continued until 1877 to take a trip to England. He returned the following year serve in the military and upon completion returned to the city of his birth. Revolutionary in both his art and his politics, Maximilien Luce was a familiar figure in the popular cafes of late 19th century Paris. Luce studied under Carolus-Duran before perfecting his drawing skills at the Ecole de dessin des Gobelins. But by far, the most influential of Luce’s mentors was Camille Pissarro. Pissarro not only taught Luce the techniques of landscape painting but also shared with the budding artist his love of nature and his sincere friendship. The versatile Luce, like many of his contemporaries, experimented with several of the modern painting techniques and schools developing in France during his career. Luce’s affiliation with Pissarro led to a shared fascination with the Divisionist technique and the scientific analyses of Georges Seurat. Along with Seurat, Luce was exhibiting at the Salon des Independants with Neo-Impressionist paintings by 1887 and founded l’Ecole des Neo-Impressionistes with Paul Signac. Luce preferred the depiction of the everyday life of the working-class rather than that of the elegant bourgeoisie. At the turn of the century, Luce grew weary of Pointillism and reverted to the Impressionist style. He was also influenced of the newly debuted Fauves, yet another growing artistic movement headed by Henri Matisse whereby non-naturalistic colors were used to evoke an emotional response. Luce created an oeuvre of astounding diversity that reflects this period of stylistic variety. He died in Paris in 1941.

Provenance: Private West Coast collection Literature: This paitning will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonee on the artist by Denise Bazetoux Considered one of the most important Post Impressionists, Maximilien Luce was born to working-class parents in mid-19th century Paris. At the age of 14, he began a career as a commercial engraver, which he continued until 1877, at which point he took a trip to England. He returned the following year to serve in the military and upon completion, returned to the city of his birth. Revolutionary in both his art and his politics, Luce was a familiar figure in the popular cafes of late 19th century Paris. Luce studied under Carolus-Duran before perfecting his drawing skills at the Ecole de dessin des Gobelins. By far, the most influential of Luce’s mentors was Camille Pissarro. Pissarro not only taught Luce the techniques of landscape painting but also shared with the budding artist his love of nature and his sincere friendship. The versatile Luce, like many of his contemporaries, experimented with several of the modern painting techniques and schools developing in France during his career. Luce’s affiliation with Pissarro led to a shared fascination with the Divisionist technique and the scientific analyses of Georges Seurat. Along with Seurat, Luce was exhibiting Neo-Impressionist paintings at the Salon des Independants by 1887 and later founded l’Ecole des Neo-Impressionistes with Paul Signac. Luce preferred the depiction of the everyday life of the working-class rather than that of the elegant bourgeoisie. At the turn of the century, Luce grew weary of Pointillism and reverted to the Impressionist style. The newly debuted Fauves, yet another growing artistic movement headed by Henri Matisse whereby non-naturalistic colors were used to evoke an emotional response, also influenced him. Luce created an oeuvre of astounding diversity that reflects this period of stylistic variety. He died in Paris in 1941.

André Brasilier was born in France in 1929. His parents were painters and he showed artistic interest and talent at a young age. At the age of 20 Brasilier entered the École des Beaux-Arts and won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome three years later. He began exhibiting in France as well as abroad, holding his first solo exhibition at Galerie Drouet in 1959. Today, Brasilier is one of the most distinguished French painters. His artistic career spans sixty years and he has exhibited in over one hundred solo exhibitions all over the world in countries including France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, United States, Russia, The Netherlands, Korea and Hong Kong. He has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including: a retrospective of one hundred artworks from 1950-1980 at the Château de Chenonceau (1980); at the Musée Picasso-Château Grimaldi in Antibes French Riviera (1988); the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (2005); and at the Museum Haus Ludwig für kunstausstellungen in Germany (2007). Brasilier’s style, often described as a blend of abstraction, expressionism, and something distinctly his own, is widely recognized. His works often feature themes and motifs such as horses, nature, music, and women. As the French critic Bernard de Montgolfier noted: “One could say that Brasilier has a very personal way of being non-figurative within figuration.” Of his own work, Brasilier said: “I always try to give the quintessence of a subject, to say a great deal with a little, like Japanese artists who focus on asceticism and simplicity.” This classic Brasilier scene features his favorite subject, horses, set in an abstract natural setting with stylistic tall black trees punctuating a large and clear sky. In the clearing, wild beige and black horses are grazing. The subject is simplistic and romantic, accenting hues of beige, grey and black which render a peaceful and dreamy atmosphere. This composition is a perfect example of Brasilier’s charming and unique style.

Bernard Cathelin was born in Paris on May 1919, and after studying at the national school of Art Decoratif, he become a member of the school of Paris. Cathelin was famous for oil painting and lithograph with a subtle richness of texture and color. Utilizing thick palette knife applications and rich colors, Cathelin produced a sense of light and corporeal form in his paintings, not unlike the work of Nicholas de Staël. His favorite themes were bouquets, landscapes and portraits of women. Cathelin traveled extensively around the world. Countries such as Mexico, Russia, Japan, Italy and Spain were a source of inspiration for his creations, but he always cherished the landscapes of Provence, the area where his mother was from. Awarded numerous prizes, he was elected to the Legion of Honour by the French President of the Republic, François Mitterand in 1995. During his lifetime he was future in over 50 exhibitions worldwide and exhibitions are still dedicated to him in France and across the world. Our composition features a pastoral landscape, brought to life with the colors of the Autumn. In the foreground a large green field rolls into more colorful patches. A dense canopy of trees partially blocks the view of a house beyond and the countryside is dotter with small bushes in various shades. Bright and dark greens are complemented by shades of plum, lavender, honey and persimmon to indicate Fall foliage and fields of colorful flowers. In the sky overhead, a thick impasto application of paint mimics Breal”s characteristic light during this period of the year.

Yvonne Canu was influenced by the Pointillists school and very strongly so by Georges Seurat and by Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte, in particular. She was actually born in Moracco but studied at the Ecoles des Arts Decoratifs in Paris being forced to interupt them due to the outbreak of WWII. She later spent time in Montmarte amnd met artists including Francois Gall and Foujita, who introduced her to not only drawing but also plein-air landscpae painting and basic Impressionist trends. It was not until 1955 when she had met Seurat did she gravitate toward Neo-Impressionism and Pointillism. The artist’s round brushstrokes of juxtaposed pure colors allowed the viewer to observe this fusing of these colors directly. She adopted the Pointillist technique and applied it to most of her work, primarily of seascapes and harbour scenes. She exhibited extensively after the War and for the rest of her life.

Andre Hambourg was born in Paris in 1909. At the age of 17, he entered the École Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs where he studied sculpture under Paul Niclausse for four years. After completing his studies at the Academy, he entered the studio of Lucien Simon at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Hambourg had his debut solo exhibition at the Galerie Taureau in Paris in 1928 while he was still a student. Hambourg became active in the important Paris salons in the first stages of his developing career. In 1931, he was made a member of the Salon de l’Art Français Indépendant and the Salon de l’Oeuvre Unique. Hambourg was awarded the Prix de la Villa Abd-el Ti in 1933, which gave him the opportunity to travel to North Africa. He spent the following ten years painting in Algeria and Morocco and had numerous solo exhibitions in Algeria, Oran and Paris throughout his stay in North Africa. In 1939 Hambourg served as a military reporter and draughtsman, and worked on the staff of the Journal de Commissariat a la Guerre. In recognition of his wartime contributions, Hambourg was decorated with the Croix de Guerre. Before the end of the war, Hambourg became the first French delegate to the Four Arts Aid Society. For his aid to French artists during this time, Hambourg was made a Chevalier of the Ordre de la Sante Publique. In 1951, Hambourg’s distinguished reputation as a master of French Post-Impressionism was underscored with his receipt of the Cross of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In 1952, he became the official painter of the French Navy and undertook numerous international voyages aboard vessels. From these global travels, the artist brought back many sketches and preparatory drawings for future paintings and illustrations. His international trips would have a lasting influence on his artwork.

Camille Bombois was born in Vernarey-les-Laumes, Cotes d’Or in France in 1883. He left school to work on a farm at age twelve and began drawing four years later. In 1907, Bombois fulfilled his dream of moving to Paris, where he married and worked as a railway laborer, eventually finding a night job at a newspaper printing plant handling heavy newsprint rolls. Despite the exhausting nature of his job he painted from dawn to dusk. 1914 marked the beginning of four-and-a-half years of military service in World War I. Bombois spent much of it on the front line, earning three decorations for bravery. Upon his return home, encouraged that his wife had succeeded in selling a number of his paintings in his absence, he resumed his routine of night labor and daytime painting. By 1922, his sidewalk displays in Montmartre had begun attracting the attention of collectors, as well as art dealer Wilhelm Uhde, who “discovered” him. His first exhibition was the 1937 “Maîtres populaires de la réalité”, Paris. Critics compared Bombois’ work to that of Henri Rousseau, which it resembled in its naïve drawing, crisp delineation of form, and attention to detail. Camille Bombois painted with a strong man’s delicacy. Everything visible is precisely defined and set off from the indistinctness of light and movement. Bombois loved the massive darkness of the black paint he uses so heavily. He adored the billiard green, the velvet red, the strong yellow, the saccharine violet of circus posters and the interiors of bordellos. They correspond to the crude objectivity of his drawings. In his landscapes and still lives alike, Bombois was a brilliant colorist and a genius of depth. Our painting, Les Etangs, a Rixensart, Belgium is a lovely landscape featuring the ponds in Rixensart, Belgium. The composition highlights Bombois’ considerable talent and unique style. The painting depicts a vast lily pond with tree line, cottony clouds and figures walking the trails along the ponds, featuring red and blue outfits. The careful attention to space, the effects of reflected light on water and the color palette of green and blue, punctuated with red, create a serene atmosphere.

Maurice Brianchon was born at Fresnay-sur-Sarthe in January, 1899. He first studied in Bordeaux at the École des Beaux-Arts under Paul Quinsac, a sculptor; in 1917 he moved to Paris and entered the École des Beaux Arts Decoratifs where he trained under Eugène Morand. He first exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1920 and by 1922 was a committee member of the same Salon. In 1924 he won the Prix Blumenthal and a travel scholarship that he used to tour Spain. In 1934 Brianchon achieved national recognition by representing France in the Venice Biennale along with Manet and it was a tremendous honor. The following year he married Marguerite Louppe, also an artist. Brianchon’s first solo show was at the Galerie Le Portique in Paris, and he went on to exhibit with Wildenstein both in London and Paris, and at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Brianchon was not tied to Europe however, and his paintings were shown regularly in America and once at an exhibition in Rio de Janeiro. He was an highly regarded member of the Peintres de la Réalité Poétique group, and exhibited with them in 1956. Brianchon's primary influences included Matisse, Vuillard and Bonnard, as well as older masters, notably Manet. His paintings can be found in many public collections, including the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. Maurice Brianchon’s early work is characterized by dynamic images of equestrian scenes, theatre stages, and street scenes painted by the young artist enamored with City life, while his later work transitioned into the relaxed, contemplative landscapes and still lives of a mature artist savoring his elder years in the country. He was the subject of a major retrospective at the Louvre in 1951 and the following year, was selected as one of the official artists of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Two years later, our painting was created when the artist had returned to a theme of members of High society and their pursuits, in keeping with his earlier work as both set designer and artist.

Achille Laugé was the son of well-to-do farmers who moved to Cailhau near Carcassonne, where he spent most of his life. Laugé began studies in Toulouse in 1878, and went to Paris in 1881. At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts he studied with Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Paul Laurens. There, Antoine Bourdelle, whom Laugé had known in Toulouse, introduced him to Aristide Maillol, and the three maintained a long and fruitful friendship. In 1888, after seven years in Paris, including a term of military service, Laugé returned to the south and established himself at Carcassonne. Finally, in 1895, he returned to Cailhau where he spent the rest of his life. Laugé’s time in Paris spanned the critical years from 1886 to1888 (Seurat's La Grande Jatte was first exhibited amidst much controversy in 1886) and his contact with Neo-Impressionism should not be underestimated. In 1894, he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, as well as at a Toulouse exhibition with de Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Sérusier, Roussel, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vuillard. In addition, he held several one-man shows in Paris from 1907 to 1930. It was after his departure from Paris that Laugé developed his divisionist technique, following the lead of Seurat and the Pointillists. Although Laugé never adopted Seurat’s scientific attitude, his interest in the primacy and division of color resulted in work with a vivid, translucent palette. From 1888 until about 1896, Laugé composed his pictures witth small points of color. At the end of the century, he abandoned the dots and dabs and painted his landscapes, portraits, and still-lives with thin, systematically placed strokes resembling crosshatching. After 1905, he applied his pigments more freely, with enlarged strokes and thick impasto that brought him closer to a traditional impressionist technique whilst maintaining his ability to paint the translucence of southern light. Our painting, Abes en fleur a Alet-les-Bains, 1924, seems to lean more toward Laugé’s earlier divisionist technique. Here the artist depicts gorgeous flowering trees in early spring with bright, luminous colors applied in quick dabs. In the background, one can see country houses, easily discernable by the bright orange of their roofs. The deep light blues of the sky, and the greens and yellows of the field, along with the cottony pink and white of the blossoming trees create a vibrant and cheerful painting which exudes peacefull energy. This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné by Nicole Tamburini.

Henri-Joseph Harpignies, a widely acclaimed landscape artist both in oil and watercolor, was born in Valenciennes on July 28, 1819. He did not start to paint seriously until the age of 27 when he became a student of Jean Achard, also a landscapist. Under Achard’s tutelage he traveled to Holland, Brussels, and Flanders to study the northern landscapists of the 17th century. Shortly after returning to France he left again, this time for Italy, where he met many of the artists of the Villa Medici in Rome. During this time, he became influenced by the work of Camille Corot. On that trip to Rome, Harpignies executed his first watercolors, which would later be known as his signature medium. In 1852 Harpignies returned to France to establish his own studio in Paris and met the artists Jean-Léon Gérôme and Jean-Louis Hamon, both of whom were at the beginnings of their careers. A year later he moved outside of Paris to continue painting en plein-air, where he met Daubigny, Diaz, Dupré, Millet, and Rousseau—all first-generation members of the Barbizon school—to paint in the countryside near Fontainebleau Forest. In the early years of his career from 1853 through 1856, Harpignies, under the influence of Corot and of the Barbizon painter Constant Troyon, experimented with figural compositions, but very quickly he shifted his focus to pure landscapes. Harpignies made his Salon debut in 1853 and continued to exhibit regularly thereafter, winning medals in 1866, 1868, and 1869. He received the Legion d’honneur in 1875 and the Grand Prix at the Exposition Universelle of 1900.

Théodore Rousseau was born in Paris, to a bourgeois family. At first, he received a business training, but soon displayed aptitude for painting. Although his father regretted the decision at first, he became reconciled to his son forsaking business, and throughout the artist’s career (for he survived his son) was a sympathizer with him in all his conflicts with the Paris Salon authorities. Rousseau shared the difficulties of the romantic painters of 1830, in securing for their pictures a place in the annual Paris exhibition. The influence of classically trained artists was against them, and not until 1848 was Rousseau presented adequately to the public. He had exhibited six works in the Salons of 1831, 1833, 1834 and 1835, but in 1836, his great work Paysage du Jura [La descente des vaches] was rejected by the Salon jury. He sent a total of eight further works to the Salon between 1836 and 1841; and yet none of them were accepted. Thereafter, he ceased sending work to the Salon until 1849, when all three of his submissions were accepted. He was not without champions in the press, and with the title of “le grand refusé” he became known through the writings of his friend Théophile Thoré, the critic who afterwards resided in England and wrote using the name Burger. During these years of artistic exile, Rousseau produced some of his best pictures: The Chestnut Avenue, The Marsh in the Landes (now in the Louvre), Hoar-Frost (now in America); and in 1851, after the reorganization of the Salon in 1848, he exhibited his masterpiece, The Edge of the Forest (also in the Louvre). Until this period Rousseau had lived only occasionally at Barbizon, but in 1848, he took up his residence in the forest village, and spent most of his remaining days in the vicinity. He was still ignored by the authorities, for while Narcisse Virgilio Diaz was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1851, Rousseau was left undecorated at this time, but was nominated and awarded the Cross soon afterwards. He would eventually become an Officer of the Legion of Honor. At the Exposition Universelle of 1853, where all Rousseau’s rejected pictures of the previous twenty years were gathered together, his works were acknowledged to form one of the best of the many splendid groups there exhibited. But, after an unsuccessful sale of his works by auction in 1861, he contemplated leaving Paris for Amsterdam or London, or even New York. He was elected president of the fine-art jury for the 1867 Exposition; however, his disappointment at being denied the better awards may have affected his health, for in August he became paralyzed. He recovered slightly, but was again attacked several times during the autumn. In November, his condition worsened, and he died in the presence of his lifelong friend, Jean-François Millet, on December 22, 1867. He left many canvases with parts of the picture realized in detail and with the remainder somewhat vague; and also a good number of sketches and water-color drawings. There are a number of pictures by him in the Louvre, and the Wallace collection contains one of his most important Barbizon pictures. There is also an example in the Ionides collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.