Maurice Eliot - Roches Blanches (nemours) - Pastel

Maurice ELIOT
(Paris, 1862 – Épinay-sous-Sénart, 1945)
Roches Blanches (Nemours)
1902
Pastel on canvas
38x61 cm / 57x79.5 cm framed
Signed and dated lower left “Maurice Eliot / 02” / Label “32” glued to the glass at the bottom right.

In the fall of 1902, Maurice Eliot produced a series of oil and pastel landscapes in the vicinity of Nemours, which he exhibited in April of the following year at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and at the Pastellistes français. He joined this societty at the invitation of its founder and exhibited there regularly from 1890: "We were still rue Houdon, when Roger-Ballu, President of the S^té des Pastellites Français, asked us to be part of this company which was beginning. […] For more than 10 years, we exhibited our pastel works there: me, landscapes and portraits, Léandre, especially portraits. "[1]

The date [19]02 inscribed next to the artist's signature and the small exhibition label "32" stuck on the glass make it possible to identify this pastel as the one presented in 1903 at the gallery Georges Petit at the annual exhibition of the Société de pastellistes français, under n°32 and the title Roches blanches (Nemours). The critics then pointed out the "pretty pink moors of Mr. Eliot, subtle and harmonious"[2]. In this pastel, the pastellist mixes the strokes of dry pastel sticks with the brushwork of moistened pastel powder, playing with textures and colors to vividly transcribe the beauty of the heather in bloom in the rocky moor.

[1] Maurice Eliot, Souvenirs de jeunesse, manuscript reproduced in the documentation of the Musée d'Orsay.
[2] F. George-Morot, “Artistic Life. To Pastellists”, La Presse, April 3, 1903.