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La Galerie Cotignac Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

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Set of Three Gouache & Watercolour Paintings of Tribal Objects on Handmade Paper
By La Roche Laffitte
Located in Cotignac, FR
A set of three framed watercolour and gouache studies on handmade paper applied to Vélin d'Arches of tribal objects by French artist La Roche Laffi...
Category

Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache, Handmade Paper

Watercolour on Handmade Paper Laid on Vélin d'Arches of an African Sculpture.
By La Roche Laffitte
Located in Cotignac, FR
Watercolour on handmade paper possibly of a 'Fang' figure applied to Vélin d'Arches paper by French artist La Roche Laffitte. A beautifully observed and detailed study of a Fang figure in muted brown on high quality hand-made paper. An extremely chic and elegant watercolour. This contemporary artist, born in 1943, specialises in watercolour studies on hand-made paper. With his highly detailed and precisely painted studies he invites us into the magical world of cultural objects, flora and fauna. The treasures of nature along with tribal regalia is his main inspiration. All of his work is beautifully observed and executed down to the smallest detail. The Fang are a major ethnic group of Central and West Africa and form part of the population of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon. They produce monumental anthropomorphic wooden statues, used for ritual purposes, with an aesthetic that was admired from the late nineteenth century onwards by such famous modern artists as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and André Derain. Fang sculptures...
Category

Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Handmade Paper, Watercolor

African Ngil Mask. Watercolour on Handmade Paper on Vélin d'Arches.
By La Roche Laffitte
Located in Cotignac, FR
Watercolour on handmade paper of a 'Ngil' mask applied to Vélin d'Arches paper by French artist La Roche Laffitte. Titled to the centre and signed by the artist to the left. A beautifully observed and detailed study of a 'Ngil' mask in light yellow/ochre on high quality hand-made paper. An extremely chic and elegant watercolour. This contemporary artist, born in 1943 specialises in watercolour studies on hand-made paper. With his highly detailed and precisely painted studies he invites us into the magical world of cultural objects, flora and fauna. The treasures of nature along with tribal regalia is his main inspiration. All of his work is beautifully observed and executed down to the smallest detail. The secret brotherhood of the ngil used large wooden masks (called nkukh or asu ngi, i.e. 'the face of the ngi'), with stylised human figures, grotesquely accentuated features, decorated with engravings reminiscent of warriors' scarifications. These masks were more or less large, sometimes polychrome, some with monoxys horns (in South Cameroon and Rio Muni), others simply coated with whitish kaolin, the symbolic colour of spirits. Father H. Trilles had several opportunities to see and even photograph them during his journey through Fang country, from Rio Muni to South Cameroon (1899-1901). The initiation was an opportunity to reveal to the neophytes, in the greatest secrecy, that the masks were not mysterious beings from the beyond but only wooden accessories...
Category

Late 20th Century Realist Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Handmade Paper

African 'Baoule' figure. Watercolour on Handmade paper Laid on Vélin d'Arches.
By La Roche Laffitte
Located in Cotignac, FR
Watercolour on handmade paper of a 'Baoule' figure applied to Vélin d'Arches paper by French artist La Roche Laffitte. Titled to the bottom centre. A beautifully observed and detailed study of a Baoule figure in muted olive/brown on high quality hand-made paper. An extremely chic and elegant watercolour. This contemporary artist, born in 1943 specialises in watercolour studies on hand-made paper. With his highly detailed and precisely painted studies he invites us into the magical world of cultural objects, flora and fauna. The treasures of nature along with tribal regalia is his main inspiration. All of his work is beautifully observed and executed down to the smallest detail. Baoulé sculptures are renowned for their refinement, form diversity and the labour they represent. The sculptures do not only include face masks and human figurines...
Category

Late 20th Century Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Handmade Paper

Sail vs Steam, 19th Century French Marine Drawing
By Georges Ricard-Cordingley
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late 19th century drawing on paper of a French marine scene by noted French artist Georges Ricard-Cordingley. Carrying the atelier stamp to the bottom right, presented in modern black frame. Provenance: This drawing came from the estate of the artist's daughter who had acquired it directly from her father. It is from his earliest period of drawing when his talents were first being recognised. A charming drawing capturing the scene of a steam tug docked next to a larger sailing boat, the scene probably at Boulogne sur Mer. Cordingley has captured the majesty of the scene, the juxtaposition of old and new technologies. It probably dates from his earliest period when he was showing prodigious talent in his early teens. Georges Ricard was born on January 30, 1873 in Lyon, son of Prosper Louis Ricard and Georgina Marie Cordingley. He spent part of his childhood in Lyon and Boulogne-sur-Mer. He displayed early gifts for drawing. He lost his father in 1885. He began his training around 1887, becoming a pupil of Jean-Charles Cazin, a landscape painter from Pas-de-Calais and the Côte d'Opale. He then joined the School of Fine Arts in Lyon and remained there from 1888 to 1889. He moved to Paris in 1890, where he studied at the Académie Julian as a pupil of Benjamin Constant, Louis Martinet and Jules Lefebvre. He lost his mother around 1892, went to England to his maternal family and added his mother's name to his name. He embarked for the North Sea with the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen and carried out his first studies. In 1894, he met with great success at the court of Queen Victoria. He embarked a second time, in 1895, still for the North Sea and produced numerous studies of waves of clouds, of the port and of portraits of fishermen...
Category

Late 19th Century Romantic Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Charcoal, Pencil

Fishing Boats, late 19th Century French Marine Mauve Ink Drawing
By Georges Ricard-Cordingley
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late 19th century mauve ink drawing on paper of fishing boats at harbour by noted French artist Georges Ricard-Cordingley. The drawing is signed bottom left and carries various annotations and another small sketch. The drawing is presented in a period wood frame under glass with a double card mount. Provenance: This drawing came from the estate of the artist's daughter who had acquired it directly from her father. A charming drawing capturing the scene fishing boats at harbour with extensive detail of the rigging and sails. It seems to be a preparatory sketch as it carries extensive colour and other annotations. There is also a smaller sketch bottom right which shows the boat from a different perspective. The figures are well annotated and Cordingley has achieved great detail but with a lightness of touch. The sketch is even more interesting as it is completed in mauve ink. This was a fashionable and technical innovation at the time as the colour was only 'invented' in the late 1850s. A really interesting, lovely and evocative drawing. Georges Ricard was born on January 30, 1873 in Lyon, son of Prosper Louis Ricard and Georgina Marie Cordingley. He spent part of his childhood in Lyon and Boulogne-sur-Mer. He displayed early gifts for drawing. He lost his father in 1885. He began his training around 1887, becoming a pupil of Jean-Charles Cazin, a landscape painter from Pas-de-Calais and the Côte d'Opale. He then joined the School of Fine Arts in Lyon and remained there from 1888 to 1889. He moved to Paris in 1890, where he studied at the Académie Julian as a pupil of Benjamin Constant, Louis Martinet and Jules Lefebvre. He lost his mother around 1892, went to England to his maternal family and added his mother's name to his name. He embarked for the North Sea with the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen and carried out his first studies. In 1894, he met with great success at the court of Queen Victoria. He embarked a second time, in 1895, still for the North Sea and produced numerous studies of waves of clouds, of the port and of portraits of fishermen which he exhibited in Paris and London. He embarked a third time, around 1896, in the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean with the Société des Travaux de Mer and was shipwrecked in Newfoundland. In 1901, he set up his studio in Boulogne-sur-Mer. He divided his time between London, Paris and Boulogne-sur-Mer and painted portraits and seascapes. He realized the decoration of the casino of Wimereux. He travelled to Australia, where he exhibited from 1909 to 1910. In 1911, he married Suzanne Giraud-Teulon, the daughter of historian Alexis Giraud-Teulon, and had three children, Éliane, Louis and Gabrielle. During the First World War, he was assigned to Lyon as a stretcher...
Category

Late 19th Century Romantic Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

Paquebot à Boulogne Sur Mer, late 19th Century French Marine Drawing
By Georges Ricard-Cordingley
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late 19th century drawing on paper of a French marine scene by noted French artist Georges Ricard-Cordingley. Carrying the atelier stamp to the bottom left and with full annotation and certification to the back of the paper. Provenance: This drawing came from the estate of the artist's daughter who had acquired it directly from her father. It is from his earliest period of drawing when his talents were first being recognised. A charming drawing capturing the scene of a paquebot, a small passenger ship, leaving the dock at Boulogne sur Mer. Cordingley has captured the majesty of the scene, the rolling waves, the force of nature. Georges Ricard was born on January 30, 1873 in Lyon, son of Prosper Louis Ricard and Georgina Marie Cordingley. He spent part of his childhood in Lyon and Boulogne-sur-Mer. He displayed early gifts for drawing. He lost his father in 1885. He began his training around 1887, becoming a pupil of Jean-Charles Cazin, a landscape painter from Pas-de-Calais and the Côte d'Opale. He then joined the School of Fine Arts in Lyon and remained there from 1888 to 1889. He moved to Paris in 1890, where he studied at the Académie Julian as a pupil of Benjamin Constant, Louis Martinet and Jules Lefebvre. He lost his mother around 1892, went to England to his maternal family and added his mother's name to his name. He embarked for the North Sea with the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen and carried out his first studies. In 1894, he met with great success at the court of Queen Victoria. He embarked a second time, in 1895, still for the North Sea and produced numerous studies of waves of clouds, of the port and of portraits of fishermen...
Category

Late 19th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

French Pastel Portrait of a Chevalier of the Order of St Louis.
By (Circle of) Jean Baptiste Greuze
Located in Cotignac, FR
A fine 18th century French pastel portrait on paper of an aristocrat wearing the order of St Louis, inferring that the sitter had been in the military serving the King. The pastel is unsigned but to the the back is a piece of the original backing paper with a notation to the Baronne de Minck. The paper has been backed with a type of vellum, It is presented in a plain gilt wood frame on a period stretcher under 18th century glass. The artist has used the pastel to create a wonderful soft velvety texture so characteristic of this medium which became so popular for portraits in the 18th century. A charming rendition of a typical 18th century nobleman...
Category

18th Century Romantic Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

La Bastide et le Champ de Coquelicots, Provence, French Rural Scene by JP George
By Yves Brayer
Located in Cotignac, FR
French 1960's gouache and watercolour view of a Provencale bastide, its surrounding farm, countryside and fields of poppies, by J P George. Signed and Dated bottom right. A super ch...
Category

1960s Folk Art Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Watercolor, Paper

A Fishing Boat at Sea, Late Mid-Century Gouache on Paper
Located in Cotignac, FR
French gouache on paper of a boat travelling the seas. The work is unsigned but dated 22/11/70. Presented in simple gilt frame with handcut mount. A really engaging and powerful painting. The artist has managed to capture the swell of the sea, the movement of the boat listing gently to one side, the slightly rusty hull, the moody sky filled with all the seagulls following behind, which suggests it might be a fishing boat. They have used a limited but strong colour palette, blues, blacks and greys and then just to highlight and catch the eye a splash of green to represent the starboard or right bow light.
Category

1970s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Paper, Gouache, Pencil

Mother Nature, Lyrical Surrealist Abstract Watercolour on Paper.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid-century lyrical surrealist abstract watercolour on paper by French artist Jean Clerté, signed and dated bottom right. Presented in mid-century frame. Jean Clerté , born in 1930 in Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe in Vienne, is a French painter, engraver, draftsman, watercolourist and sculptor . This work is a great example of his more humorous and expressive work influenced by Alechinsky from the late 1960s onwards. There is a light playfulness and yet the watercolours are more vivid than his previous palette. Jean Clerté works in series. His sequential narrations testify both to a youthful spontaneity and to a perfect mastery in the distribution of forms and images on the painted surface. The narration is not only an accumulation of juxtaposed fragments and symbols, it forms a whole, it takes on and gives meaning. In general, we can say of Clerté that he practices an “eco-art” that feeds on primary hungers: the feeling of being united with nature, the vegetable, the mineral, the aquatic. In his colourful canvases, his inks, his boxes, his objects, like a shaman on the path of his dreams, the painter Clerté mounts an assault on beasts and demons, elves and gnomes. From the Poitevin marshes to the tropical forests emerges a fauna caught in the meanders of a design that marvels at the appearance of these grotesque idols. Jean Clerté began to draw and paint at a very young age, and at the age of 15 he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Poitiers. Then in 1949, curious about the capital, he moved to Paris. Having very few financial resources, he could not continue his studies at first, worked as a model to survive, and met other artists; he was then admitted to the studio of Ossip Zadkine and, from 1952, he was also able to study engraving at Atelier 17 of Stanley William Hayter, an English engraver and printer living in Paris associated in the 1930s with surrealism. At the end of the 1960s, he worked alongside Pierre Alechinsky, founding member of the Cobra movement, engraving Alechinsky's originals, benefiting from his advice, and discovering acrylic as a medium. From 1976, Jean Clerté became associate professor at Hayter. Clerté had taught previously, in 1971 at the Salzburg Summer University and in 1972 he gave courses at the Paris-Sorbonne University . In 1981, he was appointed professor at the School of Decorative Arts , where he had Maïlys Seydoux-Dumas as a student and, from 1983 to 1988, he was Alechinsky's assistant professor at the Paris School of Fine Arts. His first works are part of the current of lyrical abstraction, and are nourished by impressions of nature (landscape motifs, e.g. forest fires, waterscapes), then around 1968, encouraged by Alechinsky, he rejects abstraction, and his work becomes more figurative with expressive and humorous elements. From this period his colours are more subdued, often with pastel tones, he works on series. Jean Clerté has created a world in a space where drawing, painting, objects participate in a playful figuration. From his drawings were born sculptures and sometimes mobiles (Le Moulin à dessin). If it is the artist who makes astonishing, polychrome, whimsical “toys”, it is the painter who appeals to adults through his caustic and satirical humour. His first exhibitions in France took place at the Galerie Massol , then at the Galerie Pascal...
Category

Mid-20th Century Surrealist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Gentlemen at the Races, Point to Pointing
By Sir Alfred James Munnings
Located in Cotignac, FR
Early 20th century watercolour of a gentleman on horseback with other riders in the background apparently signed or titled 'Count A de Monthaus'. Signed or titled bottom left. Presented in fine period gilt frame under glass. The artist has captured a moment of pause, the gentlemen rider in his fine clothes and bowler hat regarding his surroundings as his fellow riders continue the chase behind him, possibly a 'point to point'. Monthaus has captured the stance of the standing horse as well as the movement of the other horses. He has used white to give light and definition to the costume of the rider and the background. A lovely atmospheric and dynamic watercolour very much of its period and in the spirit of equine portraiture made famous by the likes of Sir Alfred Munnings. Sir Alfred James Munnings, KCVO PRA RI (8 October 1878 – 17 July 1959) was known as one of England's finest painters of horses, and as an outspoken critic of Modernism. Engaged by Lord Beaverbrook's Canadian War...
Category

Early 20th Century Romantic Animal Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Pencil, Paper, Watercolor

The Dancers, French Late Mid Century Gouache on Textured Paper
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late Mid Century French watercolour and Gouache on handmade paper of a pair of dancers by Damien Hermellin. Signed and dated bottom right. Pres...
Category

1970s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Paper, Gouache, Handmade Paper

Untitled, Abstract Expressionist Outsider Art, Pastel on Black Paper.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Abstract expressionist, pastel on black paper by English artist John McQuirk. Signed bottom right. McQuirk's work is an example of outsider art or art brut. Born in 1933, the arti...
Category

Late 20th Century Outsider Art Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Oil Pastel

Abstract Expressionist CoBrA Style Figure. Chalk on Card.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Abstract expressionist CoBrA style chalk on paper of a human figure attributed to French artist, A Nuchy. The work is unsigned but was acquired along with ...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Chalk, Cardboard

Abstract Expressionist CoBrA Style Anthropomorphic Bird. Chalk on Paper.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Abstract expressionist CoBrA style chalk on paper of an imaginary bird by French artist, A Nuchy. Signed to the bottom right. Highly colourful and inventi...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Animal Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Chalk

Modern Mid-Century Odalisque, Reclining Female Nude.
Located in Cotignac, FR
A mid 20th century modern work on paper of a female nude by Andre Petroff. Signed with monogram bottom right, presented under glass in plain red painted ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Crayon, Charcoal, Paper, Watercolor

La Plage, Cote d'Azur, South of France.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
19th century Impressionist view, in pastel, in the style of Turner, of a beach, 'La Plage', in South of France, by British artist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon...
Category

Mid-19th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Crayon, Paper

Impressionist View of Villefranche, South of France, in the style of Turner.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
19th century Impressionist view, in pastel, chalk and crayon, in the style of Turner, of Villefranche, South of France by British artist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon...
Category

Mid-19th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Crayon, Pastel

19th Century Grand Tour Impressionist View of Santo Stephano, Liguria, Italy.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
19th century Impressionist view, in pastel, chalk and crayon, in the style of Turner, of Santo Stephano, Imperia, Italy by British artist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon...
Category

Mid-19th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Crayon, Paper

The Chapel Saint Pierre, Villefranche, South of France.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 19th century pastel drawing view of the Chapel Saint Pierre at Villefranche, with the harbour beyond, by British artist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon...
Category

Mid-19th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil, Pastel

The Royal Palace, Monte Carlo, Monaco.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 19th century pastel drawing view of the Royal Palace, Monte Carlo, Monaco by British artist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon. The work is titl...
Category

Mid-19th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Pencil

The Countryside and Mediterranean Sea at Beaulieu, Cote d'Azur, South of France.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
19th century Impressionist view, in watercolour, in the style of Turner, of Beaulieu, South of France, by British artist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon...
Category

Mid-19th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Crayon, Pastel

Expressionist Gouache and Watercolour Study for 'Alexander and His Army'
Located in Cotignac, FR
French late 20th century watercolour and gouache study for the series 'Alexander and His Army' by Stephane Lovighi-Bourgogne. Presented in plain wood frame. A strong and forceful de...
Category

Late 20th Century Expressionist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Gouache

Futurist, Novecento Italiano, Mid Century Italian Painting, Figures at the Baths
By Anselmo Bucci
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century Italian Futurist, Novecento Italiano, work on paper, signed bottom right and with dedication top right (see photos). The subject is bathers enjoying the delights of a spa and sauna with colourful tiling to the background. The classical figures languorously positioned in repose but the central 'white' figure in stark contrast. The play on colours gives the work a vibrancy. The drawing is possibly a preparatory sketch for a larger work or mural. A vibrant, exciting and colourful work incorporating the styles of Futurism and the Novecento Italiano movement and with the influences or artists such as Anselmo Bucci, Adami, Jean Helion, Maryan, Achille Funi and Ugo Guidi. Anselmo Bucci was born in 1887 in Fossombrone in the district of Pesaro. Even though he studied Classics, right from a tender age he showed a talent for drawing and, when his parents moved near to Florence, he was taught by the artist Francesco Salvini. In 1904 the family settled in Monza and so the boy was able to study for a year at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, but he did not follow up this educational experience and in 1906 he left Italy for Paris where he came into contact with the Parisian avant-garde, met fellow Italian artists such as Severini and Modigliani, and made friends with Picasso, Utrillo and Apollinaire. In 1907 he showed a painting at the Salon, but these Parisian years were most important for his love of engraving techniques – etching and dry point that enabled him to fully develop his themes characterised by movement. On the outbreak of war in 1915 he returned to Italy and he enlisted in the same battalion as several Futurist artists such as Martinetti, Boccioni, Sant’Elia and Carlo Erba. In 1914 he won the silver medal at the Mostra dell’Incisione (Exhibition of Engravings) at Florence. In 1917 in Paris he published pictures of war scenes entitled “Croquis du Front Italien”. In 1919 he printed twelve lithographs entitled “Finis Austriae” again showing events from the war. At the end of the war he lived between Milan and Paris and he dedicated his time completely to his art with personal exhibitions, exhibiting at all the most important Italian and French shows, in Belgium, Holland and England. In 1922, he established the group “Movimento del Novecento”, (Novecento Italiano), (20th century Movement) a joint venture with the artists Sironi, Funi, Oppi, Malerba, Dudreville and Marussig. Their aim was to return to figurative art in contrast with the growing extremism of the Avant-gardists. In 1925 he worked on the illustration of the first edition of Kipling’s The Jungle Book producing eight dry point plates. In the early 30’s he lived in Bucci, Trieste, where he worked on the furnishing of the steamships for the Trieste Navigazione Libera, at the same time he continued to work on many book illustrations. During the second European war he adapted to being a war artist recording the events of the war as he had done previously. Indeed the engravings depicting battles of the Marines and the Air Force belong to this period. In 1945, following the bombing of his house in Milan, he returned to Monza to his father’s home where he remained until his death. Futurism was an Italian art movement of the early twentieth century that aimed to capture in art the dynamism and energy of the modern world. Futurism was launched by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909. On 20 February he published his Manifesto of Futurism on the front page of the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. Among modernist movements futurism was exceptionally vehement in its denunciation of the past. This was because in Italy the weight of past culture was felt as particularly oppressive. In the Manifesto, Marinetti asserted that ‘we will free Italy from her innumerable museums which cover her like countless cemeteries’. What the futurists proposed instead was an art that celebrated the modern world of industry and technology: We declare…a new beauty, the beauty of speed. A racing motor car…is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. (A celebrated ancient Greek sculpture in the Louvre museum in Paris.) Futurist painting used elements of neo-impressionism and cubism to create compositions that expressed the idea of the dynamism, the energy and movement, of modern life. Chief artists associated with futurism were Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini. After the brutality of the first world war, many artists rejected the avant-garde notions of futurism and other pre-war movements, by using more traditional and reassuring approaches, a phenomenon described as the ‘return to order’. Novecento Italiano was founded by Anselmo Bucci (1887–1955), Leonardo Dudreville (1885–1975), Achille Funi, Gian Emilio Malerba (1880–1926), Pietro Marussig, Ubaldo Oppi, and Mario Sironi. Motivated by a post-war "call to order", they were brought together by Lino Pesaro, a gallery owner interested in modern art, and Margherita Sarfatti, a writer and art critic who worked on Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's newspaper, The People of Italy (Il Popolo d'Italia). Sarfatti was also Mussolini's mistress. The movement was officially launched in 1923 at an exhibition in Milan, with Mussolini as one of the speakers. The group was represented at the Venice Biennale of 1924 in a gallery of its own, with the exception of Oppi, who exhibited in a separate gallery. Oppi's defection caused him to be ejected from the group, which subsequently split and was reformed. The new Novecento Italiano staged its first group exhibition in Milan in 1926. Several of the artists were war veterans; Sarfatti had lost a son in the war. The group wished to take on the Italian establishment and create an art associated with the rhetoric of fascism. The artists supported the fascist regime and their work became associated with the state propaganda department, although Mussolini reprimanded Sarfatti for using his name and the name of fascism to promote Novecento. The name of the movement (which means 1900s) was a deliberate reference to great periods of Italian art in the past, the Quattrocento and Cinquecento (1400s and 1500s). The group rejected European avant garde art and wished to revive the tradition of large format history painting in the classical manner. It lacked a precise artistic programme and included artists of different styles and temperament, for example, Carrà and Marini. It aimed to promote a renewed yet traditional Italian art. Sironi said, “if we look at the painters of the second half of the 19th century, we find that only the revolutionary were great and that the greatest were the most revolutionary”; the artists of Novecento Italiano “would not imitate the world created by God but would be inspired by it”. Despite official patronage, Novecento art did not always have an easy ride in Fascist Italy. Mussolini was personally uninterested in art and divided official support among various groups so as to keep artists on the side of the regime. Opening the exhibition of Novecento art in 1923 he declared that “it is far from my idea to encourage anything like a state art. Art belongs to the domain of the individual. The state has only one duty: not to undermine art, to provide humane conditions for artists, to encourage them from the artistic and national point of view." The movement was in competition with other pro-Fascist movements, especially Futurism and the regionalist Strapaese movement. Novecento Italiano also met outright opposition. Achille Starace, the General Secretary of the Fascist Party, attacked it in the Fascist daily press and there was virulent criticism of its “un-Italian" qualities by artists and critics. In the 1930s, a group of professors and students at the Accademia di Brera established an opposition group to Novecento Italiano. Among them was the director of the academy Aldo Carpi, and students Afro, Aldo Badoli, Aldo Bergolli, Renato Birolli, Bruno Cassinari, Cherchi, Alfredo Chighine, Grosso, Renato Guttuso, Dino Lanaro, Giuseppe Migneco, Mantica, Ennio Morlotti, Aligi Sassu, Ernesto Treccani, Italo Valenti, and Emilio Vedova (and later Giuseppe Ajmone...
Category

Mid-20th Century Futurist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Crayon, Pencil

Unique Mid-Century Original Mixed Media Newsprint and Crayon. Hat and Flowers.
By Max Papart
Located in Cotignac, FR
Unique Mid-century original mixed-media newsprint and crayon collage/drawing by French artist Max Papart, signed with dedication and dated 1967 to the bottom right. The work is on th...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Mixed Media

Materials

Crayon, Newsprint

Persephone, 19th Century Classical French Academy Drawing
Located in Cotignac, FR
19th Century French Academy drawing of a classical maiden, signed Xavier Rendeley bottom right, numbered and dated 2nd April 1883. Presented in ...
Category

1880s Academic Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Chalk, Pencil

18th Century Sanguine Drawing, La Naissance de Louis XIII, After Rubens.
Located in Cotignac, FR
18th Century French Sanguine drawing, possibly a preparatory sketch for the painting by Nattier after the painting by Rubens. Presented in shaped 'marie-louise' mount in plain gold wood frame with collection label. The subject is the Queen Marie de' Medici seated on a grand throne, the baby is in the arms of Health while Justice looks over him. Fecundity brings a cornucopia of fruit with the heads of the other children the Queen will bear. The Sun rides his chariot across the sky to indicate that Louis XIII was born in the morning and the calm figure of France surveys the whole scene. An engraving exists (see the Wellcome Collection) of this same image: 'The birth of King Louis XIII', after the engraving by B. Audran the younger after the painting by Jean-Marc Nattier after the oil painting of Peter Paul Rubens in the Louvre 'La Naissance du Dauphin (future Louis XIII) à Fontainebleau, le 27 septembre 1601'. Jean-Marc Nattier (17 March 1685 – 7 November 1766) was a French painter. He was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier (1642–1705), a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois (1655–1703), a miniaturist. He is noted for his portraits of the ladies of King Louis XV's court in classical mythological attire. He received his first instruction from his father, and from his uncle, the history painter Jean Jouvenet (1644–1717). He enrolled in the Royal Academy in 1703 and applied himself to copying pictures in the Luxembourg Palace, making a series of drawings of the Marie de Médici painting...
Category

18th Century Baroque Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Chalk, Paper, Clay

The Valley, Rouen.
Located in Cotignac, FR
French mid 20th Century watercolour landscape on paper by Roger Tolmer. Signed bottom right. Presented under glass in fine custom giltwood frame with a ha...
Category

Mid-20th Century Romantic Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Paper

French 18th Century Pastel Portrait
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late 18th Century French pastel portrait on paper of a young lady in period dress in a 'feigned oval'. In gilt wood frame presented under glass. Very much of its period and similar ...
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Late 18th Century French School Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Paper, Crayon

Mermet. Mid-Century Design for a Sculpture.
Located in Cotignac, FR
A mid-century design for a sculpture, signed or titled Mermet bottom left corner. Presented in period metal frame. A very strong image which is almost certainly a design for a sculpture due to the three dimensional nature of the piece accentuated by the lines of the image extending beyond the subject itself showing the different planes to be worked. This extremely energetic and forceful application of the crayon and the extension of the lines is highly reminiscent of the work of the expressionist Bernard Buffet who lived and worked in Tourtour in the South of France. The angular features of the figure and the dark intense lines are particularly in line with the style of his work. Expressionism was a form of art less interested in the correct anatomical representation of the subject but more in portraying the feelings and emotions that the subject evoked. The model appears to be for a sculpture quite possibly inspired by African art as the image is reminiscent of African fetish...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Crayon, Acrylic

Suzanne, Large Mid Century Portrait Drawing by Gourdon
Located in Cotignac, FR
French, Mid Century, pastel and crayon portrait of an elegant young lady by Gourdon. Signed and dated bottom left. Trade label to the back board. Presented in period deep 'tray' frame. This seems to be an early work by the artist and hence it carries his name rather than his later more distinctive signature 'Aslan'. Alain Gordon was one of two brothers, his sibling Michel also went on to achieve notable success with his distinctive 'comic' style. Alain Gourdon...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Paper, Crayon, Pastel, Watercolor

Long View to the Sea, Collioure
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century sketch drawing on paper by the Dutch artist Wim Oepts. A sketch from his Colliioure series from 1937 or his St Tropez series fr...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Paper

Jardin du Luxembourg
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century sketch drawing on paper by the Dutch artist Wim Oepts for his painting Jardin du Luxembourg from 1948 (SK115 Monografie en Oeurvr...
Category

1940s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Carbon Pencil

De Slager, The Butcher
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century study drawing on paper by the Dutch artist Wim Oepts. A sketch for the painting 'De Slager' from 1956 (SK167 Monografie en Oeurvrecatalogus)...
Category

1950s Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Crayon

Landschap te St Tropez, Landscape at St Tropez
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century drawing study on paper of a Provencale landscape by the Dutch artist Wim Oepts. Possibly an atelier sketch for the painting Landschap te St ...
Category

1940s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Crayon, Paper

Jardin du Luxembourg
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century study of a park and garden on paper by the Dutch artist Wim Oepts. A similar sketch to TK 048 in the Monografie en Oeuvrecatalogus. Carrying...
Category

1930s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Paper

Study for femme Nue, Liggend Naakt
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century life drawing study on paper by the Dutch artist Wim Oepts. Possibly an atelier sketch for the painting, 'Liggend Naakt' from 1937 (SK054 Mon...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

The Watercarrier, Orientalist Watercolour.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Early 20th century orientalist watercolour on paper by Aiveill, signed bottom right. In art history, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction ...
Category

Early 20th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Watercolor, Paper

Cattle, Goats and Sheep Grazing, Orientalist Watercolour.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Early 20th century orientalist watercolour of cattle grazing signed Aiveill bottom right. In art history, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. ...
Category

Early 20th Century Realist Animal Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Paper, Watercolor

The Long Walk Home. Orientalist Watercolour.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Early 20th century orientalist watercolour on paper by Aiveill, signed bottom right. In art history, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction ...
Category

Early 20th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Watercolor, Paper

Sunshine, The Golden Orb, Large Contemporary Pastel and Mixed Media Work on Paper
Located in Cotignac, FR
Contemporary mixed media and pastel on paper of a golden sun like orb by Belgian artist Francis Besson, signed bottom right. In plain contemporary oak f...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper, Pastel

Tablescape With Red Cloth, 1956
By Giorgio Morandi
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid Century Italian watercolour on paper of a tablescape, signed and dated (1956) bottom right. The artist is currently unknown. This painting forms part of a pair with another tab...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Ink, Paper

Barcelona Street Scene, Watercolour on Paper.
Located in Cotignac, FR
1970's Barcelona street scene watercolour on paper by Belgian artist André Pierard, signed and dated bottom right. André Pierard had a second home near ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

The Artist In His Atelier, Mid Century, Ecole De Nice
Located in Cotignac, FR
French Mid Century work on card by Sylvain Vigny. Depicting an artist (self portrait?) in his studio with his subject and muses, like Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Reminiscent of the drawings of Picasso and Matisse who were his contemporaries and neighbours on the Cote D'Azur at this period. The painting is signed and dated bottom left. In period chrome edged frame, currently under glass. If Sylvain Vigny had stayed in Paris in 1934 instead of moving to Nice on the Côte d’Azur, his highly imaginative and original work might be better known. Comparisons with better-known modernist artists including Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Rouault and Raoul Dufy set him in an appropriate and favourable context. A self-taught artist, he grew up in Vienna and emigrated to France in the 1920s, living in Paris from 1929 to 1934. After he had moved to Nice early in 1934, he exhibited in galleries along the Mediterranean coast and in Switzerland, with major exhibitions in New York in 1938 and at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune in Paris in 1948. Sylvain Vigny was part of an important artistic community in Nice, which included Jean Moulin who owned the Galerie d’Art Roman, the artist Jean Cassarini, writers Pierre and Jacques Prévert, filmmaker Nikos Papatakis, and jazz musician Django Reinhardt...
Category

1950s Expressionist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Cardboard

Sunset on the Alps
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late 19th century drawing and crayon view of a sunset over the Alps by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon. Initial signed (HBB) by the artist. Brabazon would have vi...
Category

Late 19th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil, Crayon

Late Art Deco Period Cubist Nautical Harbour Scene
Located in Cotignac, FR
Late Art Deco Period, Cubist watercolour of a nautical harbour scene painted by Yan Bernard Morel (dit Yan Bernard Dyl ) in 1939. Yan B. Morel, born on June 18th 1887, was a French painter, landscape designer, decorator, illustrator and film maker. Morel was a friend of Robert Delauney...
Category

1930s Cubist Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Carbon Pencil

Large Mid Century Watercolour of a Tablescape
Located in Cotignac, FR
Large, colourful, Mid Century French watercolour of a tablescape by Roger Decaux. Signed bottom left. Roger DECAUX was born in 1919 in Dombasle sur Meurthe in the Lorraine. He studied art in Paris with Gino Severini and Jan Brusselmans...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Interior Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Gouache, Watercolor

Bellagio, Lake Como.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 19th century pastel drawing view of Bellagio on Lake Como by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon. The work is under its original mount and initial signed (HBB) b...
Category

1860s Romantic Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Pencil

19th century pastel of a river scene, The Chapel Bridge, Lucerne, Switzerland.
By Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 19th century pastel drawing view of the Chapel Bridge and river Reuss in Lucerne, Switzerland by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon. The work...
Category

1860s Romantic Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Pencil

French Mid Century Picasso Influenced Zoomorphic Female Nude
Located in Cotignac, FR
French Mid Century Picasso Influenced stylised zoomorphic female nude drawing, oil crayon on paper, Paris School, signed and dated 1963. The work is presented in a chrome period fram...
Category

1960s Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil Crayon, Paper, Pastel

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