Maurice Mazo (1901-1989) / Couple Of Lions / Dated 1928 / Oil On Canvas

Very beautiful work by the artist MAURICE MAZO.

"Couple of lions", oil on canvas in excellent condition.

Signed lower right and dated 1928. Listed under number 0437

40 x 50 unframed

Purgatory exists for artists. Maurice Mazo is one of those true painters who were neglected by their contemporaries. Baroque and romantic writing Born in 1901 in Mostaganem, Maurice Mazo arrived in Paris from Algeria at the end of the First World War, in 1919. At the Académie Julian, he frequented the studio of the Fauve Othon Friesz, whom he replaced in 1949 at the head of the Grande Chaumière. Student then teacher, he affirms his profession of painter with fervor and perseverance. He became friends with Despiau and Bourdelle, who recognized in him a sense of form and volume worthy of a sculptor. Imbued with the Paris School of the inter-war period, Mazo is fundamentally independent. Faithful to the classical tradition, he turns resolutely towards the masters, Rubens, Veronese, Delacroix, in search of a pictorial perfection which seems to him lost with regard to the plastic research of his time. Powerful and austere, violent and sensual, sometimes tender and humorous, his taste leads him towards baroque and romantic writing. His subjects owe much to Antiquity or sacred history, and when he paints models or Parisian women, they often look like Ariadne or Judith... Against the current In compositions with multiple figures where a dazzling color triumphs, Mazo treats the contemporary genre scene - the world of Montparnasse - with verve and originality. He revisits mythology and populates a luxuriant nature with heroes and gods, in his drawings and paintings, where voluptuousness and eroticism express a real happiness in life. After the Second World War, the subject is no longer appropriate and we are more interested in the sign. Imperturbable, Maurice Mazo, faithful to his convictions, continues to chart his course, now going against the current, just like his friends Cavaillès, Nakache or Terechkovitch. A man of his time, without blinkers, he dialogues - and polemically - with the "moderns", Raoul Dufy and Henri Matisse. He is not alone. With Robert Humblot, who in 1935, along with Jean Lasne, Georges Rohner and Pierre Tal-Coat, formed the Forces Nouvelles group, he wanted to return to the great examples of traditional French painting. All these “politically incorrect” artists will only be partially heard and supported. A master draughtsman Visit of the gallery, Studio scene, Maurice Mazo is a past master in a painting of mores which strikes by its accuracy of view, sometimes bordering on caricature. The energy of the movement of the walk, the dance, the animation of a conversation, are brilliantly rendered. He uses Indian ink, sometimes enriched with pencil or red chalk. The lines, the hatching and the wash cohabit magnificently to express this spontaneity of the gaze. The incisive and moving line, nervous and tense, which deforms the volumes, offering an almost expressionist, even baroque character, runs through all his graphic work. The history of 20th century art is far from being written. It will be revisited in part with these too neglected artists. From this stimulating journey at the heart of the creation of Mazo, we retain the beauty of a personal writing that does not hide what it owes to the lesson of the elders, and in particular to the virtuoso of the pen that is Delacroix.