Jules Flour (1864-1921) Place De La Cour d'Amour

A painting, a light, a composition, a subject, and a title full of charm for this original oil on cardboard by the painter member of the School of Avignon (the famous Group of 13) Jules Flour. The work in excellent condition is offered in a simple modern frame which measures 63.5 cm by 87 cm and 52.5 cm by 76 for the panel alone. It represents the facade of an old house flooded with sunlight where clothes are hung to dry, a shirt at the window and trousers in front of the front door. We can read on a street sign "Place de la Cour d'Amour", which adds to the charm of the work which is signed lower right. Very early on, he showed a real vocation for painting that his parents very intelligently did not thwart. As a teenager, he worked as an apprentice glass painter for a stained glass manufacturer, and frequented the studio of Charles Guilbert d'Anelle. It was at the Municipal School of Fine Arts in Avignon that Gabriel Bourges, his drawing teacher, sharpened his sense of the classic line, and Pierre Grivolas made him aware of the pictorial translation of light phenomena. In 1883, his parents imposed great sacrifices on themselves to allow him to follow the lessons of Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris. The warm recommendations of the latter earned him financial support from the General Council of Vaucluse and the city of Avignon. In 1887, he truly began his career as a painter at the Salon of French Artists with a portrait. The perfection of his design, his ability to grasp the psychological truth of his models, earned him many successes in the capital. The encounters he made during this period were very valuable for the rest of his career (his master Jean-Léon Gérôme, the director of Fine Arts Henry Roujon, the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel). In 1890, Jules Flour was considered by his master Gérome as "a very good student" and "a very gifted student". From 1899, Flour shared his life between the capital and the Vaucluse. He frequently exhibited his paintings at regional fairs (Béziers in 1892, Montpellier in 1896) and more particularly in his hometown, especially during exhibitions of the Vaucluse Society of Friends of the Arts. In 1906, he joined the School of Fine Arts in Avignon, where he was entrusted with the teaching of drawing from relief, and painting for first-year students. In 1908, the excellence of his teaching earned him additional responsibility, to finish from 1913, to take care of the students of the upper course. In 1912, eleven painters and two sculptors, the fine flower of the Avignon school, decided to leave the Vaucluse Society of Friends of the Arts, then headed by Mr. Charles Formentin, because they disputed his decision to reserve exhibitions only for "landscapers vauclusiens”. They are the painters Pierre Alexandre Belladen, Alfred Bergier, Lina Bill, Colombier, Claude Firmin, Jules Flour, Joseph Hurard, Alfred Lesbros, Meissonnier and Louis Agricol Montagné and the sculptors Jean-Pierre Gras and Deprez. They will soon be known as the Group of Thirteen. Jules Flour died of throat cancer on February 10, 1921.