Joseph LÉPINE
(Rochefort 1867 – Paris 1943)
The Church of Caillac - Lot
Oil on cardboard
H. 33 cm; W. 41 cm
Signed lower left
Joseph Lépine quickly moved to Bordeaux, where he studied under Louis-Alexandre Cabié, a well-known landscape painter in the region and teacher of many early 20th-century artists. Despite the master's warnings, he sought to confront the Parisian modernity of the late 19th century and discover Impressionist and even early Post-Impressionist styles. There, he became a student of the neoclassical painters Courtois and Girardot, both former students of the great Jean-Léon Gérôme.
In 1897, he exhibited at the Salon, where he sent landscapes of Provence. He became a member of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1905, the same year that the Fauves Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck participated in and became known at the Salon d'Automne. A purchase by the French government of the 1908 Salon des Indépendants, "Vieille boutique," now housed at the Menton Museum, officially launched his career. He exhibited that year in London at the Royal Albert Hall, at the invitation of the Allied Artists' Association, demonstrating the painter's distinguished status within the international art scene. In Paris, the artist met several well-known painters of the time in the Montmartre and Montparnasse neighborhoods, including Matisse and Signac.
His painting is based in particular on his approach to material, light, and color, whose juxtapositions present a play of saturation and composition based on apparent reserves. After the First World War, Lépine returned more to his home region, where he painted landscapes around Bordeaux and up the Dordogne River to the charming landscapes of the lower Corrèze. He painted Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, Argentat, and also the Lot region, with the built-up escarpments of Saint Circq Lapopie.
The city of Bordeaux and the French government acquired two of his works, representing a landscape near Verdelais and a view of the Saint-Michel Church in Bordeaux, in 1939 and 1941.
Considered today a very important figure in Bordeaux painting...
Category
1920s French School Francesco Christofanetti Art
