Louis Hayet (1864-1940) - The Three Clowns, Circa 1900

Louis Hayet (1864-1940)
The three clowns, circa 1900
Oil on panel
41 x 31 cm
53.5 x 45 cm with its frame
Signed and dedicated lower right

Louis Hayet is a post-impressionist and pointillist painter, born in Pontoise August 29, 1864 and died in Cormeilles-en-Parisis (not far from Pontoise), December 27, 1940. His parents, Calixte Hayet and Léontine Dufour, were very poor. At school, he is shy and reserved but is considered intelligent and gifted. His predisposition for painting will appear from the age of twelve. From 1877 to 1884, he traveled the roads with his father, a traveling merchant. Childhood comrade of Lucien Pissarro, Hayet had the opportunity to show the latter his work to Camille Pissarro in 1883. Around 1885, he became friends with the Pissarros, father and son, whom he met again in Paris. Hayet, draftsman and painter, will bind to the Neo-Impressionist group, to Pissarro, as well as to Signac and Seurat. At the beginning of May 1886, Lucien Pissarro and Hayet, during a visit to Seurat's workshop, discovered "An afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte". This visit, one or two weeks before the 8th and last exhibition of the Impressionists, was decisive. Hayet's pointillist paintings are of excellent quality. From 1887, he produced small formats in which the neo-impressionist touch became twirling and dynamic. During the Independents of 1889, Fénéon wrote: "... the third painting by Mr. Hayet is one of the most beautiful that the Impressionists have produced! In the afternoon, a valley, with very fragmented crops; a high tree blooms in the sky of clouds and sun in a sudden bouquet of rabbets; the foreground is superb. [...] Mr. Hayet, who for the first time, we believe, is exhibiting a series of solid and personal works ..." In 1890, however, he returned to a more classical manner and Paul Signac deleted all mention of Louis Hayet in the second edition of "From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism" (the pointillism manifesto). After Seurat's death, Louis Hayet isolated himself and nevertheless took part, between 1894 and 1897, in eight of the exhibitions at Le Barc de Boutteville. Hayet will devote the end of his career to scientific research on pigments or color, without ever ceasing to paint.