Henri-André Martin Figurative Paintings

Oil on canvas by Henri-André Martin (1918-2004), France, ca.1980s. Les Baux de Provence. With frame: 71x98 cm - 28x38.6 inches. Without frame: 65x92cm - 25.6x36.2 inches. 30P format. Signed lower right "Henri A Martin" (see photo). Located and dated 1961 on the back (see photo). Can be matched to make a pair with another painting by Henri-André Martin that we offer on 1stdibs whose title is "Henri-André Martin Olive Tree Field in the Alpilles, Provence, Oil on Canvas". Born in Lyon in 1918, the child and the adolescent Henri-André Martin spent his youth in Saint-Étienne, his father, Edme Martin, first installed as a practicing doctor in Lyon, having been appointed doctor of the anti-tuberculosis dispensaries of the Loire. During his first years of studying medicine in Lyon, he nevertheless enrolled in the Beaux-Arts. Appointed hospital intern upon his return from captivity in 1942, he ended his medical career as director of the otolaryngology university clinic at Édouard-Herriot hospital. But painting was his passion. Painting was for Henri-André Martin the way of expressing his feelings. By nature very reserved and of an extreme modesty that many took for coldness, it was what allowed him to express his strong artistic sensitivity and, his pictorial periods are as many reflects of his anxieties, of his hopes, of his joys. At every period of his life, wherever he goes and whenever he has a moment, he paints gouaches, often of small size, but sometimes of larger size. He also paints beaches that have been compared to those of Boudin. Their invoice shows, however, that this figure is only appearance and that in fact, these beaches made of water, sky and sand, readily dispense with the motif, the work of the material seeming to have more importance. as the subject. Despite the fact that until the 1970s he painted "on the ground", his canvases remain far removed from the anecdote. Often harsh like the landscapes of Provence, the Parisian walls which express concern, or the railways, the switch tracks which suggest, in ocher and black, all the embarrassment of choice. We find the same nostalgic gravity in the canvases of the carcasses of boats which, as his friend Louis Pons later wrote, "seem to die of immobility" or in the canvases of Venice, or the landscapes of Eygalières. In the following years, his painting became simpler, more synthetic, such as these landscapes with tortured almond trees, black and gnarled olive trees, plane trees standing out against the ocher sky of the dawn of Provence, in winter. These are also the canvases of Hamburg in the dough becomes heavier, the colors darken, marking all the gravity of the port landscapes. Workshop work gradually takes precedence over motif painting. The pivotal period coincides with that of his work on the olive tree, during which he leads the realization of the "Trunks", a collection of six lithographic plates, of the book L'olivier comprising many lithographs and serigraphs, but also texts. poetic and numerous paintings. He then became passionate about everything related to the olive tree (literature, painting, traditions, history), but also to the tree itself, its thousand-year-old history, its poetry, its symbols, but also its culture, its size. oil production...

Oil on canvas by Henri-André Martin (1918-2004), France, 1999. Road in Eygalieres, Alpilles, Provence. With frame: 52x67 cm - 20.5x26.4 inches. Without frame: 46x61cm - 18.1x24 inches. Format 12P. Signed and dated lower left "Henri-André Martin 99" (see photo). Located on the back (see photo). Can be matched to make a pair with another painting by Henri-André Martin that we offer on 1stdibs whose title is "Henri-André Martin Road in the Alpilles, Provence, Oil on Canvas, 1980s". Born in Lyon in 1918, the child and the adolescent Henri-André Martin spent his youth in Saint-Étienne, his father, Edme Martin, first installed as a practicing doctor in Lyon, having been appointed doctor of the anti-tuberculosis dispensaries of the Loire. During his first years of studying medicine in Lyon, he nevertheless enrolled in the Beaux-Arts. Appointed hospital intern upon his return from captivity in 1942, he ended his medical career as director of the otolaryngology university clinic at Édouard-Herriot hospital. But painting was his passion. Painting was for Henri-André Martin the way of expressing his feelings. By nature very reserved and of an extreme modesty that many took for coldness, it was what allowed him to express his strong artistic sensitivity and, his pictorial periods are as many reflects of his anxieties, of his hopes, of his joys. At every period of his life, wherever he goes and whenever he has a moment, he paints gouaches, often of small size, but sometimes of larger size. He also paints beaches that have been compared to those of Boudin. Their invoice shows, however, that this figure is only appearance and that in fact, these beaches made of water, sky and sand, readily dispense with the motif, the work of the material seeming to have more importance. as the subject. Despite the fact that until the 1970s he painted "on the ground", his canvases remain far removed from the anecdote. Often harsh like the landscapes of Provence, the Parisian walls which express concern, or the railways, the switch tracks which suggest, in ocher and black, all the embarrassment of choice. We find the same nostalgic gravity in the canvases of the carcasses of boats which, as his friend Louis Pons later wrote, "seem to die of immobility" or in the canvases of Venice, or the landscapes of Eygalières. In the following years, his painting became simpler, more synthetic, such as these landscapes with tortured almond trees, black and gnarled olive trees, plane trees standing out against the ocher sky of the dawn of Provence, in winter. These are also the canvases of Hamburg in the dough becomes heavier, the colors darken, marking all the gravity of the port landscapes. Workshop work gradually takes precedence over motif painting. The pivotal period coincides with that of his work on the olive tree, during which he leads the realization of the "Trunks", a collection of six lithographic plates, of the book L'olivier comprising many lithographs and serigraphs, but also texts. poetic and numerous paintings. He then became passionate about everything related to the olive tree (literature, painting, traditions, history), but also to the tree itself, its thousand-year-old history, its poetry, its symbols, but also its culture, its size. oil production...

One of several paintings that we are offering from Henri-André Martin's studio sale. A wonderfully evocative original painting of figures relaxing on a beach in the South of France, ...