Louis Bellon

Provence Abstract mid 20th Century Painting

c. 1950s

Louis Bellon was a pupil of Antoine Chartres. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts of Lyon. His art was deeply influenced from a multitude of sources — André Lhote, the Neo-Impressionism of Georges-Pierre Seurat, the young artists of Les Nabis, the intimism of Pierre Bonnard, the delicate art of Paul Cézanne, the Cubism of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, the exciting colors of Henri Matisse, the Orphism (so named by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire) of Robert and Sonia Delaunay. In 1938, Bellon was elected a member of the Salon of the South-East, one of the most prestigious arts organizations of Lyon, where many important contemporary artists exhibited. It was there that Bellon met the Nabis painter Paul Sérusier, allied himself with the Cubist Albert Gleizes, and discovered in the work of Paul Klee, an artistic inspiration similar to his art. Bellon's works are exhibited at the Modern Art Museum in Lyon and in numerous private collections.